The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City will shut down after Labor Day weekend.
{mosads}“Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike we see no path to profitability,” Tony Rodio, the president and chief executive officer of Tropicana Entertainment, which runs the Taj Mahal, said in a statement, according to Press of Atlantic City.
More than 1,000 cooks, housekeepers, bellmen, bartenders, cocktail servers and other service workers have been on strike at the casino since July 1.
“Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we have will to have to close the Taj after Labor Day weekend and intend to send WARN notices to before this weekend.”
The casino is not owned by Donald Trump, but still bears the Trump name. The Republican presidential nominee reached an agreement last year with billionaire Carl Icahn to allow for his name to remain on the casino, Business Insider reported, after it was acquired by Icahn.
“The Trump Taj Mahal, under the right leadership and with the proposed significant reinvestment in the property, can be, once again, a wonderful place for travel and entertainment,” Trump said last year, according to Business Insider.
The decision to close the Trump Taj Mahal is in part due to the strike, which began after union agreements with Tropicana Atlantic City and Caesars Entertainment. The main issue in the strike has to do with health insurance and pension benefits, according to The Associated Press.
The president of Local 54, of the Unite-HERE union, criticized Icahn in a statement.
“For a few million bucks he could have had labor peace and a content workforce, but instead he’d rather slam the door shut on these long-term workers just to punish them and attempt to break their strike,” Bob McDevitt said in the statement.
“There was no element of trying to reach an agreement here on Icahn’s part; it was always ‘my way or the highway’ from the beginning with Icahn. It is the epitome of the playground bully, who picks up his ball and announces he is going home because nobody else would do it his way. It is truly a shame that such an unscrupulous person has control of billions of dollars.”
The closure will cost about 3,000 workers their jobs, according to The Associated Press.