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Trump Taj Mahal In Atlantic City Will Bite The Luxurious Dust After Labor Day
By
David Colon
Published Aug 4, 2016
Modified Aug 4, 2016
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By
David Colon
Published Aug 4, 2016
Modified Aug 4, 2016
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A little while back, we looked at the fate of the Trump Taj Mahal, the last Atlantic City casino with Donald Trump's magnificent name plastered on it. The Taj barely survived an expected closure in 2014, but time, a huge strike, and slumping gambling revenues caught up with the casino, and management announced yesterday that the Taj will close for good after Labor Day.
The Taj Mahal, despite having Trump's name on it, was no longer a Trump property after Trump Empire Resorts filed for bankruptcy in 2014. However, it got snapped up by Trump frenemy Carl Icahn, who took a Trump-esque tack with the striking workers and refused to negotiate with them over their health care and pension demands, Unite Here Local 54 president Bob McDevitt told the New York Times. The president of Tropicana Entertainment, Tony Rodio, blamed the strike, saying in a statement that "the Taj is losing multimillions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability."
“For a few million bucks, he could have had labor peace and a content work force,” McDevitt said in a competing statement, "but instead he’d rather slam the door shut on these long-term workers just to punish them and attempt to break their strike."
The closure of the casino after Labor Day will lead to the loss of 3,000 jobs, which will bring the total of recent Atlantic City job losses up to over 10,000. It's a fate the Taj has been postponing for years; Jacobin recently revisited the dark history of the casino and resort, which has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy almost from the moment it opened.
And if the casino's grand promises and easily foreseeable financial ruin were in line with Trump's history, the union-busting closure fit in with charges levied at Carl Icahn in a recent report that his acquisitions of companies around the country had cost 35,000 jobs.
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Atlantic City
carl icahn
donald trump
taj mahal
David Colon
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