Crown Melbourne Workers Interrupt New Year Celebrations with Strike

New Year’s Eve is generally a time for festivities. For Crown Melbourne workers, however, it was the time for a fight.

The Workers Demand Better Conditions

Employees at Crown Melbourne, an Australian casino under the umbrella of Crown Resorts, have gone on strike on New Year’s Eve. The workers cited their suboptimal paychecks as the reason for the strike and refused to work, forcing Crown Resorts to bring in temporary workers.

The strike lasted from 10 pm on December 31 to 2 am on January 1 and involved approximately 600 casino workers.

While guests were largely unaffected by the strike, it highlighted the continued disagreements between the casino property’s workers and the management. For context, the United Workers Union (UWU), which represents dealers, servers, and security workers at Crown Melbourne, previously rejected an agreement with the management due to the reduced pay it offered to newly hired individuals.

A spokesperson for the casino defended the offer, saying that it offered an average pay that is roughly 40% above industry standards, sometimes reaching 60% above the base rates for certain positions.

Despite UWU’s rejection of Crown Melbourne’s most recent offer, the management said that it remains committed to reaching a resolution.

UWU Says Crown Is Exploring a “Race to the Bottom” Employment Model

A deeper look into Crown Melbourne’s most recent proposal shows plans to increase the wages of existing employees by 3.25%, 3%, and 3% over the next three years. However, as mentioned, it also envisioned significantly lower salaries for new hires.

Lower paychecks for newly-acquired hires is a measure that reflects Crown Resorts’ ongoing cost-cutting initiatives in the wake of its acquisition by Blackstone. Such measures have sought to strengthen the company’s financial position amid trouble with Australian regulators caused by Crown’s earlier instances of non-compliance.

In any case, the UWU firmly rejected Crown’s approach, accusing the operator of prioritizing cheap labor over retaining skilled and experienced staff members. The union emphasized that its members “are not having it” and that they want to ensure the long-term success of casino workers.

Andrew Jones, director of UWU Casinos, slammed Crown Resorts’ latest offer as one exemplifying a “US-style race to the bottom employment model” that is incompatible with the Australian ethos.

The offer was rejected by 87% of UWU members, leading to the strike.