The strike at Encore Boston Harbor is in its fourth week. About 1,300 workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 26 and Teamsters Local 25 walked out at 7 a.m. on Friday, September 4, after their contract expired August 31. As of this week there were still no negotiations: MassLive reported on September 23 that the unions say the casino has offered less than half of the raises they want, and that a casino spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The fight has become an argument about money, and the unions have now published their side of it in detail. This is what the union’s case says, where it comes from, and what Wynn has said in reply.
What the workers are asking for
Raises over three years of $10 an hour for non-tipped workers and $5 an hour for tipped workers, according to the unions, plus keeping the health care, benefits and job security protections in the expired contract. Hourly pay now runs from $15 to $32, the unions say, with tipped workers earning less. They describe the target as pay that matches Boston’s downtown hotels. The Teamsters unit is 211 people: warehouse, horticulture, call center, cage cashiers, limo drivers, dispatchers, traffic attendants, valet and guest experience. The rest are Local 26 housekeepers, cooks, servers, bartenders and slot attendants. Teamsters voted 97 percent to authorize the strike on August 20.
The union’s numbers
Local 26’s strike page lays out a financial argument built, it says, from Wynn Resorts’ own public filings, with each figure footnoted. The central claims:
- Encore Boston Harbor produced $741.2 million in operating profit before rent from 2023 through 2025, while Wynn put $130.2 million of capital spending back into the property. By the union’s arithmetic that is about 18 cents of each profit dollar, and 11 cents in 2025.
- In 2025 the property took in $846.9 million, paid $184.2 million in state gaming taxes and cleared $236.7 million in operating profit. Wynn invested $26.9 million in it that year.
- From 2021 through 2025, the union says, Wynn spent $189.1 million on Encore Boston Harbor and $892.3 million in two years on its casino under construction in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.
- In 2022 Wynn sold the Everett land and buildings to Realty Income, a San Diego real estate trust, for $1.70 billion, and now leases them back. The union puts the 2026 rent at $128.8 million.
The union quotes Wynn chief executive Craig Billings on CNBC in March 2025 describing the Everett property: “It’s great. It chugs along. It produces cash. Again, we can redeploy that cash, and it’s a stable place.”
We have not independently rebuilt these figures from Wynn’s filings. The 2022 sale-leaseback is a matter of public record. The profit and capital-spending comparisons are the union’s calculations, and “operating profit before rent” is the union’s chosen measure; with $128.8 million a year now going to the landlord, the casino’s profit after rent is considerably smaller than that line suggests. Readers should weigh them as advocacy built from real numbers.
What Wynn says
Wynn’s answer, circulated earlier this month, is that its Everett workers already earn “substantially more” than people in comparable jobs in Boston, with average compensation in the striking job classifications of about $96,000 a year in wages and benefits. The company has not published how that average is calculated or which jobs it includes, and the union calls it padded. Encore has also pointed to what it says are $370 million in payments to host and surrounding communities since 2019. The casino has stayed open throughout. Our week-two report has more on both positions.
Why it matters here
Chelsea is one of the casino’s surrounding communities, across the Mystic from the Everett site. The Boston, Everett and Somerville city councils have passed resolutions supporting the workers. Encore’s own customers are split: in the “Losing at Encore” Facebook group, where regulars trade notes, posts this week included a rally announcement and a reminder not to cross the picket line alongside ordinary questions about the gaming floor, the split we reported on last week.
No bargaining session has been announced.