Live dealer table games are shown at Harrah’s Hoosier Park Racing & Casino. The Anderson casino, which furloughed 998 employees on March 16, has filed a notice with the state and city that it “may remain closed for business for the foreseeable future.” Staff photo by Don Knight
ANDERSON — Harrah’s Hoosier Park Racing & Casino, which furloughed 998 employees on March 16, has filed a notice with the state and city that it “may remain closed for business for the foreseeable future.”
The WARN notice, written by Senior Vice President and General Manager Trent McIntosh, was dated Wednesday and sent to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, Mayor Thomas J. Broderick Jr. and the Region 5 Workforce Board.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 requires most businesses with 100 or more employees to provide 60-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs.
McIntosh wrote in the WARN notice that due to “the unforeseeable, unanticipated and substantial reduction in business levels resulting from the pubic health emergency caused by COVID-19,” 998 employees in Anderson were furloughed.
“Hoosier Park, LLC intends for the furloughs to be temporary; however, given the unknown certainty surrounding COVID-19, it is possible that the furloughs could become a permanent layoff,” McIntosh wrote. “Employees may have the right to bump any other employees pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement.”
McIntosh noted that the WARN Act ordinarily requires a 60-day advance notice, but due to the public health emergency, he wrote, compliance was not possible “as the furloughs are the result of business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable at the time that notice would have been required.
“Therefore, this notice is given as soon as practicable under the given circumstances,” he wrote.
The letter states that Hoosier Park will not need assistance for retraining employees because they “fully intend to re-open with our existing employees.”
“Should circumstances change, we will contact the necessary state and local agencies to provide support as needed,” McIntosh wrote.
The notice is filed as a closure, not a layoff, on the Indiana Department of Workforce Development website.
Scott Olson, director of media for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, said the WARN notice is listed as a closure instead of a layoff because the casino is not operating.
He said if the casino’s doors were still open, but they laid off workers, then it would be listed with a layoff code.
“With this one, essentially everyone is laid off and the casino is closed, thus the CL designation,” he said.
Broderick said he spoke with Harrah’s Hoosier Park Racing & Casino owners in addition to Eldorado Resorts Inc. officials, the company planning to purchase the casino’s parent company, Caesars Entertainment, during a ZOOM meeting on Tuesday.
He said Hoosier Park did not mention that they were filing the WARN notice on Wednesday, but he is optimistic the casino is not planning to close permanently.
“They were planning on making the additional investments into the property that they had envisioned when they first decided to buy it which included an expansion of the physical facilities of the property to be able to add more gaming, some more amenities, some more lounging areas, etc.,” Broderick said. “All that is still on track.”
© 2024 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.