To the HTC-represented employees of Rivers Casino & Resort
Schenectady,
Attached is a summary of your new union contract. I am proud
to announce that this contract provides for the largest wage
increases in any renewal contract in our Union’s nearly 100-
year history and includes several truly historic new provisions.
The wage increases are broken down into two components.
The first is a large increase retroactive to October 2022 and a
signing bonus, which our Union was able to win thanks to an
economic reopener we negotiated in the current contracts for
Rivers, Resorts World Catskills, and del Lago. This provision
gave us the right to reopen the contracts in the event the
casino tax rates were reduced. In the midst of the pandemic, we used our political
muscle to successfully push New York State to give a significant tax break to the
casinos. This not only helped the casinos to remain open and protected thousands of
union jobs, but it put us in a position to reopen negotiations and demand that the
casinos share their savings with their union workforce. That is why these increases
take effect during the unexpired term of the current contract.
The second component – annual wage increases going forward – was won through
traditional, hard bargaining.
Your new contract also includes groundbreaking language, including: our first-ever
childcare benefit, a new annual cost-of-living adjustment, Juneteenth as a paid holiday,
and new language that strengthens our arbitration rights. The casinos have also
agreed to sign on to any additional benefits we ultimately win in the new GRIWA, which
we are renegotiating with the hotel industry now.
I’m incredibly proud of the unprecedented increases and new rights we have won –
and I’m even prouder that we were able to achieve them while also reducing the cost
of healthcare and protecting all of the other hard-won benefits in the current contract.
Our Union has been determined to make gaming jobs in New York State among the
best in the country. This new agreement does just that.
Congratulations,
Rich Maroko
HTC President