This time around, it happened at Alliante. Similar to when O'Sheas closed and the media reported that all was well, that everyone was offered a job and transferred, that the casino took care of the staff, the same line was repeated in the Alliante case.
As I'm sure you're not surprised, just as in the case of O'Sheas closing, the story put forward by the news fails to portray an accurate picture.
Here's what the news media reported:
http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article/aliante-casino-and-hotel-closes-poker-room-five-employees-laid-off-203109
Based on conversations with a few friends, here's what I gather actually happened:
As you may or may not know, on November 1 ownership of Alliante transferred away from the Stations Casinos folks to a group called Alliante Gaming, LLC.
That same day, the poker room staff was apparently called in to a meeting and told the poker room was closing and that they were ALL laid off - seven full-time and ten part-time staff, seventeen employees total, out of work. They were apparently also told that there were no jobs available on property but they were free to reapply for openings after a thirty day window. Being as they had worked for a non-Stations property for a total of nine hours or so, they no longer could apply for a transfer to a different Stations casino either.
If they had been told a week earlier that the room was going to close, which I'm sure someone at the property had to have known, those seventeen might have been able to scramble and find a job at a different Stations property. Sure, it might not have been a poker job, but it would have been a job.
It seems to me that seventeen people out of a job and unable to apply for a job with the new owners is a bit different than five people laid off with the casino working to help them find jobs. The media still regurgitates whatever the casino wants them to instead of doing any actual investigative reporting. The public still buys what the media and the casinos are selling.
The ugly side of Vegas still thrives. The older generations of Vegas workers still pine for the days when the mob ran the town.
I need more coffee...
7 comments:
Brutal...
That does indeed suck and I feel for those who have lost a job and got screwed over by the change over and the timing of information being passed along.
Horrible. Those are people with families and bills to pay.
THAT DOES SUCK, BUT THAT'S THE BIZ WE CHOOSE. POKER IS A TINY PART OF THE SYSTEM, AND USUALLY WILL HAVE MORE SAND KICKED IN OUR FACES. IT'S POKER...DEAL WITH IT !!
Unfortunately, it's not just poker. It's not even just casinos. Incidents like this happen in just about every industry. I could relay numerous stories of similar events from my fifteen years in the I.T. industry. Saying it's just poker is over simplifying the problem.
I actually had to follow this story for my two jobs.....it was difficult to find out what was going on for a while, but yeah, very unfortunate, to put it mildly.
You're right, it happens in every industry. It happened to me about 8 years ago, long before I was involved in poker. I knew my company was about to be sold, and I was promised that my job was secure with the new owners. On the day the sale was finalized, I was let go. Also, since it was a new company, I was given no severance pay and also denied about 4 weeks vacation pay that I had coming to. Not fun at all.
Sadly Casino's are pure profit organizations and they tend to overlook the individual needs of their employers :(
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