The strike at Encore Boston Harbor passed two weeks on Friday. Roughly 1,350 housekeepers, cooks, servers, bartenders, slot attendants, warehouse workers and drivers have been on the picket line on Broadway in Everett since 7 a.m. on September 4. When we last checked, on day nine, there were no bargaining sessions scheduled. There still are none that either side has announced. What has changed is the roster of elected officials lining up behind the unions, and the casino’s decision to argue its case in public.
Three councils
On Wednesday, September 16, the Boston City Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the strikers. Its members pledged they will not “eat, conduct meetings, stay, or otherwise patronize” Encore until new contracts are signed, and the resolution describes the workers as people who “serve as ambassadors” for the region and deserve “a living wage, job security, and quality healthcare.” Boston is the third council to go on record; the Everett and Somerville councils had already done so. The Everett council’s vote carries the most weight symbolically, since Encore is Everett’s largest taxpayer and the city’s own mayor, Robert Van Campen, walked the line on the first morning.
The numbers each side is using
The unions, UNITE HERE Local 26 and Teamsters Local 25, are asking for raises of $10 an hour over four years, a $25 starting wage, and guarantees that current health and pension benefits carry over. Wynn Resorts’ answer, repeated this week, is that its Everett workers already earn “substantially more” than people in comparable jobs in Boston, and it puts average compensation in the striking classifications at about $96,000 a year. The company has not published how that average is built or which jobs it covers. Encore has also pointed to what it says are $370 million in payments to host and surrounding communities since the casino opened in 2019, and posted this week about jackpot payouts and its community contributions to Everett, an unusual step for a company that spent the first week of the strike saying little.
What is different about week three
The first week was about whether the casino could operate; it did, with managers and non-union staff. The second was about who would show up on the line; the answer was a string of state legislators and, by the end, three city councils. The third week’s question is whether anyone will call a bargaining session. Neither side has said it asked for one. A federal mediator has not been publicly announced. The contracts expired August 31 after talks that began in April.
For Chelsea the strike is a mile away: Encore’s Broadway entrance sits across the Mystic from Admiral’s Hill. The longer the line holds, the more the question of a strike fund and health coverage for the second month becomes the story, and neither union has said publicly how long it can pay.