Some 52 valets at Atlantic City’s Ocean Casino Resort recently approved being represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Sean M. O’Brien, pictured above. He is the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Valets at an Atlantic City casino recently affiliated with the union. (Image: Wall Street Journal)
Union officials said the vote was “overwhelmingly” in favor of associating with the prominent labor organization.
Leaders of Teamsters Local 331 will start to negotiate a contract for the new members and praised the workers for the move.
“I … applaud their decision to organize with the Teamsters and fight for what they deserve,” Marcus King, president of Local 331, said in a statement released this week.
This is a fantastic organizing victory, and we look forward to helping this group secure an excellent first contract that reflects their hard work,” he added.
Among their priorities are higher wages, improved benefits, job security, and decent working conditions.
One of the new union members, Regina Ceballos, who works as a valet cashier at Ocean Casino Resort, said that she and her colleagues organized the effort to be represented by the Teamsters so they would get more respect from supervisors and executives.
“Management felt they could do things without any input from us,” Ceballos said in the statement.
We wanted to get some power back and have a voice. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are excited and ready to fight for a strong first contract.”
Big Victory
Tommy Blitsch, director of the Teamsters Convention, Trade Show, and Casino Division, further explained that valets at Ocean Casino, “were fed up with the status quo and are ready to fight for the benefits and protections afforded by a Teamsters contract.”
We look forward to winning a first contract. This is a big victory and will be a stepping stone for other nonunion workers at casinos in Atlantic City.”
Teamsters Local 331 represents workers in New Jersey’s Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Gloucester counties.
Currently, more than 5K casino employees nationwide are members of the Teamsters Union.
Recent Unite Here Deal
In July 2022, employees at five gaming properties in Atlantic City voted in favor of a four-year labor agreement that gave work improvements to the union members.
The 6K workers were represented by Local 54 of the Unite Here union in negotiations with Borgata, Caesar’s, Hard Rock, Harrah’s, and Tropicana casinos.
The agreement also led to similar deals with an additional 3K employees at Bally’s and Ocean Casino Resort.
In addition to getting a pay boost, the Unite Here members got their health care fully funded, improved pension plans, job protection, and fairer workloads.
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