Workers at Brisbane’s Star casino are preparing to walk off the job during tonight’s State of Origin decider, as pay negotiations stall.
About 200 workers from the casino’s gaming floor, Skydeck bars, casino-owned restaurants and housekeeping team staged a two-hour strike for the first time last Friday evening.
Casino workers taking strike action last Friday.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt
The United Workers’ Union said Star Entertainment Group had not returned to the negotiating table with a better wage offer since then.
United Workers’ Union national casinos director Andrew Jones said the timing of Wednesday night’s four-hour stoppage was no accident.
“If Star thinks it can sideline workers while the crowd’s packing in for one of the biggest nights in the footy calendar, they’ve got another thing coming,” Jones said.
The Queen’s Wharf precinct has been a major financial headache for Star.Credit: Glenn Campbell
“State of Origin is a marquee event for the casino, and Star will feel the pressure from before kick-off.”
The union argues the casino giant has proposed to reduce Sunday penalty rates, and that its year-on-year wage increases amount to a pay cut.
Loading
Tonight’s strike action will begin at 6pm.
The embattled casino has also been forced to cancel a planned poker event this week – the 2025 Brisbane Champs – which the union said was a result of the continued industrial action.
The troubled casino operator, which was on the brink of financial ruin for many months earlier this year, secured a deal in March to sell its stake in Brisbane’s glitzy riverside Queens Wharf precinct to Hong Kong investors.
But Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Far East Consortium, which each own 25 per cent in Queen’s Wharf, last week threatened to walk away from the deal that includes them buying 50 per cent of the gaming, hotel and retail complex as well as the Treasury hotel and carpark.
As the deadline for the deal passed on Monday, Star said negotiations were continuing but conceded it would be forced to cough up nearly $37 million if the sale falls through.
Read the full article here
