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Carl Icahn battles union, NLRB over N.J. casino contracts

"He’s taken our middle-class jobs and made us into the working poor," a longtime Taj Mahal employee said.

By Frances Burns

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Billionaire Carl Icahn, the de facto owner of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. N.J., is fighting a union and the NLRB over employee benefits.

Icahn, in a letter posted on his website, insisted he is on the side of the union employees.

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"I am fighting for those employees -- fighting to save their jobs in the midst of a wholly unstable crisis," he said.

But members of Local 54, UNITE-HERE, said they are unable to survive without health insurance. A federal judge ruled that Icahn can replace employee pensions and insurance coverage with 401K accounts and insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

"He's taken our middle-class jobs and made us into the working poor," Valerie McMorris, who has been a cocktail waitress at the Taj for 25 years, told the Wall Street Journal. The National Labor Relations Board asked a U.S. appeals court Thursday to reverse the judge's decision. Local 54 of UNITE-HERE, the largest union at the Taj, is appealing the lower court ruling.

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The NLRB said the judge's ruling "displaces the Board's primary authority" to enforce the National Labor Relations Act.

Atlantic City's casinos have been hit hard by the recession and by growing competition, first from casinos in Connecticut and more recently in Pennsylvania. Four closed last year, including Revel, the city's newest, which never made a profit during its brief history.

The Taj appeared likely to become the fifth until Icahn, the casino's largest creditor, announced in December he had reached an agreement with Local 54. Icahn said he would invest $20 million in the casino.

Icahn, in his letter Thursday, said union leaders "do not seem to care that if they win the appeal it will only mean the loss of the very jobs they are supposed to protect."

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