Casino food workers authorize strike
Workers at Twin River threaten strike over changes in health insurance benefits
By a vote of 327 to five, members of the labor union representing food and beverage workers at Twin River Casino opted to enact a strike if the company does not come up with a deal by 4 a.m. on Friday.
The members of Unite Here Local 26 – a union representing 10,000 casino, hotel, food service and airport employees in Rhode Island and Massachusetts – are protesting a change to health care coverage they say has resulted in higher deductibles and less coverage.
“We have done everything we can to make Twin River Casino management aware of the crisis it is creating for Rhode Island families by slashing our health care and taking away our benefits,” said Julie Procaccini, a 10-year banquet captain. She said that despite the millions Twin River brings to the state, the company “makes us pay more than we can afford if we want healthcare benefits for our children.”
Procaccini made the announcement to news reporters outside the casino early Wednesday evening, as more than a dozen employees stood behind her cheering, applauding and chanting, “Strike! Strike! Strike!”
Twin River workers announced their threat of a strike in a rally outside the State House on May 30. This week from 5 p.m. on Tuesday to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, workers came out to an RV parked at 19 Paul St., across the street form the south parking lot, to vote.
Twin River Casino spokesperson Patti Doyle sent out a statement shortly before the result of the vote was announced.
“We have prepared for this eventuality and expect no interruption in the food, beverage and gaming service we intend to provide our customers this weekend,” she wrote. “That said, we also have placed ads in local publications for positions in our food and beverage departments. We have immediate openings, and offer highly competitive wages and benefits.”
Doyle added, “Beyond this, we have no further comment on the strike action.”
In January, Twin River changed employees’ United Health plans without collective bargaining, an action that occurred prior to the union’s five-year collective bargaining agreement expiration in April.
Unite Here Local 26 holds that this violates fair labor practices and has issued a complaint, which is pending, with the National Labor Relations Board.
Bartender Valerie Costa said that coverage for herself, her husband and
her two children, ages 11 and nine, has gone from $130 per week to $250 per week, and that copays and prescription costs have gone up.
“With the healthcare costs going up, it’s become a significant burden on my family,” she said.
Daiana Pina, a 25-year-old line cook at Twin River, said the change in coverage kicked her off the health insurance plan because she isn’t work- ing enough hours.
She said her schedule of 12-hour shifts fluctuates so that she is sometimes working around 20 hours a week and sometimes around 40.
Now Pina, a single mother of a 1-year-old son, has no health insurance.
“I’ve been standing too much on my feet, and I can’t go to the doctor’s,” she said.
If the strike were carried out, it would be the first strike of Unite Here members in Rhode Island since 1980, according to the union. Vice president Jenna Karlin said Unite Here Local 26 is asking for “good healthcare for our families and reasonable wages,” and that the union is open to how to figure that out.
She said of what she’s been hearing from employees since the change, “People are either paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars to just have basic health care, or they’re too afraid to go to the doctor.”
The union plans to give an update on the status of the strike situation today.