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Crown Casino Melbourne Workers to Continue Planned Strike

Posted on October 14th, 2010

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There seem to be no stopping workers of the Crown Casino of Melbourne from wreaking havoc on this year’s Spring Racing Carnival. The actual wording from the workers, who feel they are underpaid by the casino, is that there will be “chaos” in the facility with them refusing to work properly unless management gives in to their demands. The union which represents the staff of the casino has revealed that the workers will be holding a succession of work stoppages lasting one hour each on the gaming floor of the casino this coming Friday. This series of work disruptions are planned to last until Saturday, when the festival’s main event, the Caulfield Cup, will be held.

The casino has been pointed at by the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union as offering its members salary increases that it considers inadequate, and also introduce3ing changes to the casino that would eventually take away around $5,000 every year to experienced dealers. At the start of the week, the secretary of the union in Victoria, Jess Walsh, said that that almost all employees of the gambling facility, including gaming machine attendants, dealers, security personnel, and food and beverage and kitchen staff will be involved in the one-hour stoppages to start on Friday. Walsh adds, “We think it’s likely that the gaming floor at Crown will shut several times across the day on Friday.”

On the other side of the battle is the embattled casino. Gary O’Neill, Crown Melbourne spokesman, said that operations of the complex should continue and they would remain open despite facing the eminent threat from the union and its members. He remarked that the casino has already prepared for this since September, when the union first announced its plans, giving them time to prepare for contingency measures. The plans they have prepared, he believes will keep the facility open up until the weekend of the Caulfield Cup.

On the other hand, Walsh retorts, “There were no contingency plans Crown could put in place to avoid confusion and chaos on the gaming floor. Most Crown staff are irreplaceable, both in terms of licensing and training, and also experience and knowledge of the particular requirements of this casino. It will be impossible to bring in outside replacements, who would not be qualified to work at this casino.” She adds 5that the strike will make the casino lose a lot of revenue. She becomes more precise, “It will cost Crown up to $180k in lost revenue every hour workers are on strike or more than $4 million for the day.” Negotiations between the union and the cas8ino persisted at the start of this week. Walsh divulged that the union made an offer to decease its demand for a pay rise of 13.5 percent over the course of three years to 12.75 percent, still over three years. However, the casino did not give in, although it did increase its offer to 11.25 percent over the same period of time. Moreover, the offer of the union also demands that the casino not push through with their plan to alter the pay scheme for senior dealers skilled to operate three games. Under the plan, dealers who became qualified to operate three games would get a decreased pay rate compared to dealers that are
currently already qualified at that level.

Walsh said that these changes would be to the disadvantage of the newly qualified dealers, as this would decrease the pay rates of dealers who are experienced by more or less $2.40 for every hour worked. For the casino’s part, O’Neill said their offer was not interpreted properly by the union. He comments, “Crown has guaranteed that no casino dealer will lose any wages as a result of its offer and in fact hundreds of dealers will move to a higher wage rate. The union knows this but has repeatedly sought to create uncertainty around this issue. No experienced dealer or any other dealer will lose $5000 a year as the union has claimed.” O’Neill said that the disruption on the weekend will be the first ever to be experienced by Crown. He adds that the pay offer of Crown to the Melbourne employees to prevent the strike was “the most generous in the casino industry in Australia this year”.