PHILADELPHIA _ The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., will close after Labor Day weekend in part because of an ongoing strike by workers, its owner company said Wednesday.
"Currently the Taj is losing multimillions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability," Tony Rodio, head of Taj Mahal manager Tropicana Entertainment Inc., said in a statement. "It is one thing for a board to decide to invest tens of millions of dollars in a money-losing business when they have a turnaround plan. But the Taj board and the Icahn Enterprises Board have fiduciary duties to shareholders and our directors cannot just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the union has single-handedly blocked any path to profitability."
About 1,000 workers have been striking this summer after negotiations fell apart over an impasse over health and pension benefits.
"How petty. I would never have thought Carl Icahn was so one-dimensional," Bob McDevitt, president of striking Unite Here Local 54, said in a statement. "The great deal-maker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes."
Calling Icahn "unscrupulous," McDevitt slammed the billionaire for making what he said was a personal decision and not a business one. The money Icahn would have spent on workers' health care and retirement, McDevitt said, was small compared to the amount he had promised to invest in the struggling city.
The company will formally notify the state of the layoffs this week. About 3,000 workers would lose their jobs in the closure.
"Even if the union accepted what we previously offered, which included the Unite Here health-care plan we were led to believe they wanted, we would still be losing significant amounts each month," Rodio said, "but at least there would be hope."
Four casinos _ Showboat, Atlantic Club, Revel and Trump Plaza _ closed in 2014, victims of increased gambling competition on the East Coast and leading to an estimated 8,000 lost jobs.
The closure of the Taj Mahal will leave seven casinos in the resort town that has long depended on gambling as its lifeblood.
New Jersey Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, a Democrat, criticized the closure announcement as "an act of corporate Wall Street greed."
Icahn "knew the situation when he took over, and instead of investing in his workforce and the property itself, he has been bleeding his workers dry, union and nonunion, in an effort to pin the problems of the Trump Taj Mahal on the workers," Mazzeo said in a statement.
Opened by Donald Trump in 1990, the Taj Mahal was teetering on the verge of closure in 2014 when Trump Entertainment Resorts, its owner, filed for bankruptcy. It planned to close in November of that year.
Carl Icahn bought the company _ spending about $86 million to keep the Taj open amid the wave of casino closures _ and Trump Entertainment Resorts emerged from bankruptcy in February. The Taj is now run by the same managers running the Icahn-owned Tropicana.
The casino kept Trump's name but is no longer owned or controlled by him.
This summer has seen continued struggle for the casino, with about 1,000 workers going on strike July 1, just before the major Fourth of July weekend. The members of Unite Here Local 54 _ including bellhops, cooks and housekeepers _ set up picket lines on the boardwalk after rejecting a last offer from Taj management during contentious contract negotiations.
In emerging from bankruptcy, the company stripped unions of their health insurance and pension benefits; the company's last offer before the strike included restoring some health insurance and reducing the number of rooms per shift per cleaner from 16 to 14.
But the union said that offer was inadequate. The strike, which continues, will enter its 35th day Thursday.
While Atlantic City has sought to diversify its economy, including through planned creation of a Stockton University campus, gambling remains a financial cornerstone.
That may soon slip away even faster, with a referendum on the ballot in November asking voters to approve casino gaming to North Jersey.
