Workers vote to unionize at a third Mississippi Coast casino, and pay raises are part of the deal

More than 1,000 employees at Beau Rivage Resort & Casino now are part of a union and will receive additional benefits such as increased pay and a choice of switching to union health coverage.

It’s the third Coast casino whose workers voted to unionize.

“MGM Resorts International and The MGM Gaming Workers Council recently reached a five-year collective bargaining agreement at Beau Rivage in Biloxi,” the casino confirmed in a statement.

“This is the first agreement between the parties and it covers approximately 1,300 workers at the Biloxi resort, in positions ranging from cooks and waiters to guest room attendants and hotel engineers,” the Beau Rivage said. “The MGM Gaming Workers Council is comprised of three unions — Unite Here Local 23, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 891, and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 406.”

According to the most recent report from the Mississippi Gaming Commission, the Beau Rivage has 3,220 employees.

Both the Beau Rivage and the union representative called it “a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“It’s a great contract,” said Marlene Patrick-Cooper, organizing director for Unite Here Local 23, a region that covers Biloxi, Tunica, New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville.

Before the Beau Rivage, she said the union started negotiating before Hurricane Katrina with what is now Harrah’s Gulf Coast Casino and continued after the storm. IP employees unionized in 2016, the same year she said the unions started bargaining with Beau Rivage.

Workers at those three parent companies are unionized in Las Vegas, Tunica and New Orleans, she said. Patrick-Cooper said she doesn’t see the union trying to organize another Coast casino in the near future, but instead will take the time to get this latest agreement operational.

She said the Beau Rivage and employees worked together to craft an agreement that improves communication and cooperation, provides greater job security and protection, and address department concerns.

The most important benefit, she said, is increased pay.

Certain classifications of employees being paid less than $10 an hour now will earn a minimum of $10, retroactive to April 1, she said. All non-tip employees will receive 53 cents an hour for their first wage increase this year, she said, with annual increases to follow.

“This is the highest across-the-board wage increase that we’ve ever won on the Gulf Coast,” she said. At the end of the five-year contract, union members who don’t receive tips will be paid $2.27 an hour more and those who do receive tips $1.26 more.

She said that other benefits are:

▪ Members will have the option to join the union health plan at lower rates, with open enrollment starting in October.

▪ Promotion, transfer, layoff, shift choice and recall will be by seniority

▪ Union members will be part of union bargaining rather than at-will employees