When the Tropicana Casino permanently closes on April 2 — two days shy of its 67th anniversary — many of its employees could walk away with a year or more in pay.
An undated photo of the Tropicana casino floor. Many veteran employees will walk away from the doomed resort with a year or more in pay. (Image: bons-plans-voyage-ouest-american.com)
Due to a union contract in December, severance at the Las Vegas Strip resort includes $2K for each year of employment, with no cap on the benefit. So hundreds of employees could receive as much as $60K each.
“It’s a significant part of that workforce that has been working there for decades,” Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 Ted Pappageorge said during a Zoom news conference earlier this week.
“In Las Vegas, hotels are bought and sold on a regular basis,” Pappageorge added. “New projects are welcomed to Las Vegas, but workers can’t be discarded like an old shoe.”
The Trop’s owner, Bally’s Corporation — which is unrelated to the Caesars property that used to be called Bally’s — has decided to implode the vintage Vegas property to make room on the Strip for a new baseball stadium for the Oakland A’s.
Nevada legislators approved $380M in public funding last year to help build the $1.5 billion ballpark.
Bally’s Corp. also intends to build a new casino resort adjacent to the ballpark, and longtime employees of the Tropicana are also being offered the option of accepting a lower severance payout in exchange for being considered higher on the list of candidates for employment there.
Pappageorge said the union’s contract with the Tropicana will apply to the new casino resort, but not to the stadium. However, the union does have an agreement with the A’s that would potentially allow stadium workers to unionize and negotiate union contracts.
“We hope there will be a path forward for all stakeholders so the Las Vegas A’s can join the Vegas Golden Knights and the Las Vegas Raiders to continue this transformation as Las Vegas, the ‘Entertainment Capital of the World,’ also becomes the ‘Sporting Capital of the World,’” Pappageorge told Casino.org last year.
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