Massachusetts casino workers on strike
Everett, Massachusetts
On September 5, some 1,300 housekeepers, cooks, slot attendants, delivery drivers, grounds staff, warehouse, horticulture, floral department and call center workers, cage cashiers, limo drivers, dispatchers, traffic attendants and valets walked off the job at the Encore Boston Harbor Casino and Hotel in Everett, Massachusetts..
Striker Rob Traynham and his father Bob Traynham at the Encore Casino picket line. Bob is a retired member of United Steelworkers Local 8751, the Boston school bus drivers’ union. Sept 15, 2026. WW Photo: Phebe Eckfeldt
The workers are represented by UNITE HERE Local 26 and Teamsters Local 25. They are fighting for better wages, benefits and protections on the job.
The two unions are demanding a $10 per hour wage increase over three years and a $5 an hour increase for tipped workers. This would bring the wage scale up to what other unionized hotel employees make in Boston. Encore wants to eliminate healthcare benefits.
Local 25 President Thomas Mare said, “When a company refuses to respect the workers who make its profits possible, we shut it down.”
Local 26 Communications Director Seth Ogilvie said: “We deserve a contract that allows us to live in the city. We deserve a contract that is on par with the hotels downtown. If we are a five-star hotel, we should at least get what a Hampton Inn employee gets.”
Other Boston hotel workers are paid as much as $3 an hour more than what Encore workers make. They cannot pay rent with their salary and are often forced to work two or more jobs. Encore workers cannot even live in the town they work in and are forced to live far away. Several area mayors who attended a rally expressed anger about this, saying Encore promised the workers that they would have a stable living wage.
Like teachers and nurses in Boston and around the country, Encore workers are fighting.
Rob Traynham, a door attendant at Encore, told Workers World: “Encore emphasizes the importance of employees, but profit margins are what they are really about. They only care about the casino — that is their profit margin. They have all the money in the world but want the strikers to bend.
“I have friends who pay $2,400 and $3,000 a month rent.” Traynham continued, “and it’s the war going on [U.S. war against Iran] that’s jacking up the prices. It is affecting the whole world. We need to hold on and keep the faith and fight. That’s what we are doing right now.”
The strike is entering its second week. The workers are asking how long this will take. Times are different now. Capitalism is on the offensive, as it has always been, but now it is in its end stage and is dying. It is fighting hard to save itself, while most workers are struggling to meet their basic needs.
In a recent article entitled, “U.S. empire crumbling – A new world in birth,” Workers World Party First Secretary Larry Holmes wrote, “Workers, more than ever before, also understand the need to fight for a future free of want, to fight for the things that they need to preserve life. … They want it for the world.”
