Trump Taj Mahal casino shutting down amid record-long strike

Atlantic City’s Trump Taj Mahal casino will close at the end of the Labor Day weekend amid labor strife stirred by the last in a series of bankruptcies for the former gambling empire of Donald Trump.

The casino, once the crown jewel of the now defunct Trump Entertainment Resorts company, will shutter after Labor Day weekend, according to a statement issued by Tropicana Entertainment’s CEO Tony Rodio, who put the failure of the casino at the feet of striking union members and “the prior equity owners who put it into its recent bankruptcy” – that is, the Trump Organization.

Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability.

“The great dealmaker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes”, he said.

Closure of the casino, which is in the midst of a strike by its unionized workers over wages and health insurance costs, would be another blow to the struggling New Jersey beach resort.

The casino kept Trump’s name but is no longer owned or controlled by him.

Calling Icahn “unscrupulous”, McDevitt slammed the billionaire for making what he said was a personal decision and not a business one.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Striking Atlantic City casino workers have rallied in Trenton in support of a bill that would grant unemployment benefits to workers engaged in lengthy labor disputes.

Now the longest running strike in the history of Atlantic City casinos, the action – which encompasses over 1,000 “cooks, housekeepers, bellmen, bartenders, cocktail servers and other service workers” – is focused on restoring healthcare and pension benefits that were taken away as part of bankruptcy proceedings initiated by Trump Entertainment in 2014, probably with that exact goal in mind.

A spokesman for Icahn declined to comment.

Icahn “knew the situation when he took over, and instead of investing in his workforce and the property itself, he has been bleeding his workers dry, union and nonunion, in an effort to pin the problems of the Trump Taj Mahal on the workers”, Mazzeo said in a statement, “when instead Mr. Icahn and others just needed to look in the mirror”. He also owns Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino, which jointly bought and then shut down the Atlantic Club casino in January 2014, with Tropicana and Caesars Entertainment divvying up the casino’s assets.

McDevitt says 60-day warning notices for employees are required, estimating the earliest a shutdown would be permitted would be in early October.

Icahn Enterprises said the workers’ union that represents the Taj workers has “single handedly blocked any path” to turning the casino’s business around.

McDevitt said union members will continue to picket the casino as the closing approaches.