The books of Nassau OTB are matters of public records pursuant to the NY Pub. Off. Law.
The politicians of the OTBs eg NYC work too little, are paid too much and/or are not worth a fraction of what they are worth? Ditto for Suffolk OTB.
Keep Kevin McCaffrey in Lindenhurst and vote for Mickey Mouse some other notable figure for the race in the Fourteenth Legislative District.
Gentings' Slot machines are open every day of the year and Nassau OTB closes based on the religious preference of some but not others and thus violates the rights of bettors secured by NY State Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3
Kevin McCaffrey should see that the decision of the First Circuit is applied across the US so that people pay income tax and not carried interest. Let him do some useful work.
N.Y. / Region
Ruling Doubles Paycheck for 1,375 Employees at High-Grossing Queens Slot Parlor
Ángel Franco/The New York Times
“It’s life-changing. I can
finally feel relieved,” Jeannine Nixon said. A Resorts World Casino
employee, she makes two bus trips to school with Carl Jones Jr., her
son, and then two more to get to work.
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: October 27, 2013
Jeannine Nixon looked as if she had hit the jackpot. Ms. Nixon, a customer relations representative at Resorts World Casino in Queens, had just learned that she would be making $40,000 a year, up from $22,300.
“It’s life-changing,” Ms. Nixon, her voice cracking, said on Thursday. “I can finally feel relieved.”
After a year of wrangling between management and her union, the Hotel
Trades Council, an arbitrator had issued a ruling that would double the
average paycheck for 1,375 union cashiers, attendants, waiters,
bartenders and security guards who work at Resorts World, the highest
grossing slot machine parlor in the country. The decision, issued last
week, is to be made public on Monday.
Resorts World, like most slot parlors and full-scale casinos, had long
promised thousands of good jobs and millions of dollars in revenue for
the state. It was a particularly enticing assurance in the poor and
working-class neighborhoods in southeastern Queens that surround Resorts
World and the aging Aqueduct horse-racing track next door.
The slot parlor at Aqueduct, the only one in New York City, has been
spectacularly successful in the two years since it opened. Yet the
average wage for workers laboring amid the clanging electronic slot
machines and table games was only slightly more than $10 an hour.
The average pay under a new three-year contract will immediately jump to
$20.50 an hour, or nearly $40,000 a year, according to the Hotel Trades
Council. Wages will increase further in the second and third years of
the contract.
Ms. Nixon, who lives in subsidized housing, said she recently postponed a
blood test because she could not afford to pay for it. A single mother,
she takes two different buses every morning to take her son to school,
before taking two other buses in the opposite direction to get to work.
“If I had a car,” Ms. Nixon said, “it’d be a 15-minute ride.”
Peter Ward, president of the Hotel Trades Council, said, “This is the outcome we want, if we’re going to have gambling in New York.”
“We’ve worked to create a situation where the middle class is suddenly
within reach of gaming workers,” Mr. Ward added, “not a bunch of
minimum-wage jobs where people have to live on the dole to survive.”
The workers at Resorts World will also now be covered by the union’s pension and health plan.
The arbitration decision comes only a week before voters are being asked to approve Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s plan to expand gambling
in New York, with up to seven full-scale casinos (containing both
electronic slot machines and table games like poker, roulette, craps and
blackjack), with hotels, shops and entertainment sites. Resorts World
and eight other slot parlors in the state that are connected to
racetracks — and are known as racinos — have only electronic games.
Proponents have long argued that the casinos would bring economic
development and tax revenues earmarked for education and property tax
relief. Critics contend that gambling represents a regressive tax whose
costs outweigh any benefits.
At the urging of the Hotel Trades Council, state officials required slot
parlor operators to sign “labor peace agreements” that they hoped would
ensure jobs with decent wages and working conditions. Mr. Cuomo’s plans
for full-scale casinos include a similar requirement.
But if voters approve the casinos, there is no guarantee that casino
workers upstate, where unions are weaker, would have the leverage to
obtain the same pay as those at Resorts World.
Resorts World is owned by the Genting Group,
a Malaysian company that operates a network of casino-resorts in
Britain and Asia. It opened Resorts World in October 2011, after bidding
far more — $381 million — than two other operators for the slot
franchise at Aqueduct. The company spent about $420 million building the
casino, which has 4,525 electronic slot machines and 475 electronic
table games.
With more than 5.6 million people living within 10 miles of Resorts
World, the slot parlor has been crowded night after night.
Resorts World boasts that the giant slot parlor attracts 35,000 visitors
a day and more than 12 million a year. It posted revenues of $696.5
million in the year ended in March, 38 percent of the $1.8 billion in
combined revenues for all nine racinos in the state.
The electronic slot machines at Resorts World averaged $432 a day last
month, far more than slot machines in Las Vegas, Atlantic City or
Connecticut.
After most workers signed union membership cards from the Hotel Trades
Council, the union and Genting began negotiating a labor contract.
The two sides reached an impasse on economic issues a year ago, so the
union invoked the arbitration clause under its agreement with Genting.
In making his decision, the arbitrator selected by both sides, Elliott
D. Shriftman, considered the success of the business, the paycheck
necessary for full-time workers to sustain themselves, their spouses and
their children without government assistance, and the company’s ability
to pay.
Rather than open its books, Genting conceded that it could pay higher wages.
“We respect and will implement the arbitrator’s award as required and
will continue to focus our efforts on improving our facility,” Kerri
Lyon, a spokeswoman for Resorts World New York City, said in a statement
released on Sunday.
“This will restore a path into the middle class for workers in that
community that has been eroded over the last several years, given the
broader changes in the city economy,” said James A. Parrott, chief
economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research group. “You can see a big drop-off in African-American and Latinos working in city government.”
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