Picketers affixed an anti-Icahn poster that they had signed to the casino’s main Boardwalk entrance door. Nearly 3,000 workers lost their jobs, bringing the total jobs lost by Atlantic City casino closings to 11,000 since 2014. The sprawling Boardwalk casino, with its soaring domes, minarets and towers built to mimic the famed Indian palace, shut down at 5:59 a.m., having failed to reach a deal with its union workers to restore health care and pension benefits that were taken away from them in bankruptcy court. 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.ATLANTIC CITY – Donald Trump opened the Trump Taj Mahal casino 26 years ago, calling it “the eighth wonder of the world.”īut his friend and fellow billionaire Carl Icahn closed it Monday morning, making it the fifth casualty of Atlantic City’s casino crisis. “The great deal-maker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes. “I would never have thought Carl Icahn was so one-dimensional,” said union president Bob McDevitt. Icahn offered to restore health insurance to Taj Mahal workers, but at a level less than what workers at the city’s other seven casinos receive. The central issue in the strike is restoration of health insurance and pension benefits that previous owners got a bankruptcy court judge to approve in October 2014. Unfortunately we’ve reached the point where we will have to close the Taj.” “Our directors cannot just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the union has singlehandedly blocked any path to profitability. “Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability,” said Rodio. On Thursday, the walkout by Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union will reach its 35th day, eclipsing the 34-day walkout the union staged against seven casinos in 2004. Tony Rodio, president of Tropicana Entertainment, which runs the Taj Mahal, said management decided Wednesday it can no longer operate a money-losing property in the midst of a strike.

And the bloodletting may not be over yet: Voters will decide in November whether to permit two new casinos in northern New Jersey just outside New York City, a development that would likely lead to additional casino closures in Atlantic City.

Trump casino in atlantic city closes