Newly-acted Atlantic Metropolis on line casino union chief Donna DiCaprio was a bit confused in her first week in workplace after being questioned in regards to the continued indoor smoking ban at 9 resorts.
DiCaprio took over on Wednesday the Unite Right here Native 54, a labor union representing about 10,000 non-gaming employees at 9 casinos. She’s going to oversee a commerce group that negotiates pay scales for quite a lot of occupations, together with housekeepers, cooks, waiters, bartenders, bellmen and porters.
She changed Bob McDevitt, who held the function for over 25 years. DiCaprio will not have to barter a brand new collective bargaining settlement for at the very least three extra years, however her tenure begins with a urgent situation to handle: indoor smoking on components of the stadium ground.
Lawmakers in New Jersey are contemplating a invoice to take away the no-smoking exemption supplied to Atlantic Metropolis casinos by the state’s smoke-free air legislation of 2006. Congress Invoice 2151 and Senate Invoice 264 are clones of payments mandating all casinos to be smoke-free.
Underneath present legislation, Atlantic Metropolis casinos can designate as much as 25% of their ground area for smoking.
“Suicide Pact”
In an interview this week, Related PressDicaprio was requested for her place relating to the smoking dilemma. She expressed her view much like McDevitt, arguing that quitting smoking would scale back her annual gross gaming income by 25%.
DiCaprio stated Atlantic Metropolis’s proximity to Philadelphia and casinos that permit smoking indoors in designated areas meant {that a} no-smoking coverage alongside the coast “can be a suicide pact.”
A research commissioned by the On line casino Affiliation of New Jersey (CANJ) and performed final 12 months by Pennsylvania-based gaming consultancy Spectrum Gaming Group concluded that smoking bans may end result within the lack of as much as 2,500 jobs at 9 Atlantic Metropolis casinos. The overview additional predicted a virtually 11% decline in annual GGR within the first 12 months after casinos have been compelled to smoke-free.
That is dangerous for resorts and their staff, however the state would lose as much as $44 million a 12 months in tax cuts.
Anti-smoking teams react
CEASE — a on line casino worker who speaks out towards the results of smoking — got here out and waved his arm at Dicaprio, likening quitting smoking to suicide.
Indoor smoking is slowly killing us day-after-day. “From Donna DiCaprio’s insulting description of a key piece of laws that might shut a loophole in on line casino smoking cessation, parroting trade arguments about air flow techniques, and proposing compromises that merely keep the established order, it is clear that the brand new president of the Native 54 has no understanding of the conditions we face at work day-after-day,” the CEASE assertion stated. On line casino.org learn. “Like his predecessor, DiCaprio has taken over the waters of on line casino executives and Huge Tobacco, spewing anti-worker false statements.”
It’s unclear why the 2 payments, each of which have obtained ample help to move by means of their cosponsors, are being blocked by Congressional leaders in Democratic-dominated governments. However maybe the trigger is that every one 120 seats are operating for elections this November.
(Tag Translation) Asia-Pacific Gaming
