Super Casino for Manchester: A bad decision?

[Phil Blinkhorn]

There's at least one group of, would you believe it, hoteliers and boarding house owners/operators in Blackpool campaigning hard AGAINST Blackpool getting the Casino after a re-consideration. They prefer to see Blackpool remain as it is.

Talk about turkeys capaigning for Christmas (or bird flu!).

[Henry Mantell]

I see the Noble organisation, owners of Coral island, have applauded the Manchester award of the casino decision. They have also criticised the Blackpool regeneration and can't see the need to change Blackpool.
With 4 million visitors to Coral Island they would say that out of self interest wouldn't they?
Personally I think that the resort needs regeneration, and it has made great strides in extending the Prom and improving the sea wall to prevent the winter dune landscape near Coral Island! It does need to improve facilities and I like the proposed park.
Incidentally the Pleasure beach new ride (well OK hybridised Traumatizer from Southport) is rapidly being erected by a very efficient German crew. I hope Blackpool has a good season.
Personally I wouldn't go near Coral Island but most people seem to!
I have very happy memories of Blackpool holidays in the 1950's and it is in my opinion the best resort in Britain.

[bazzor]

I too would have preferred Blackpool to have won the bid for the casino for a many reasons. It would have been far better suited and desperately needed far more than Manchester. Plus I hate gambling!

I have my doubts as to how it will benefit local people? Not so long ago ‘2004’ a study were conducted by a University on where the worst place to live in England was, and Harpurhey topped that study and was said to be the most depressing place to live in England, the study took into account things like, health, education, crime, poverty, employment, drug addicts, criminals and many other indices… and Harpurhey is not an isolated district, I know the area very well, just looking around the proposed location for the super casino and you will see very similar places like Miles Platting, Ancoats, Beswick, Newton Heath, Monsall, Moston, Cheetham Hill, Openshaw etc… none of these areas are affluent or well to do areas, these are where the poorer and less fortunate people have had to struggle usually all their lives. What I am getting at is how many people who come from backgrounds like this will be employed by this super casino? And I don’t mean car park attendant or toilet attendant, the "so called" jobs nobody in England will do.

One casino has recently closed down in Manchester, the Hard Rock Casino, I had been in there a couple of times and I never met anyone who worked there from England never mind Manchester. Most was from Eastern Europe including Russia.

If the casino’s purpose is to target people with money, why not build it in Wilmslow or Knutsford where they could encourage the rich and famous to part with their cash which they have in abundance? But no, a better idea will be to dump the unwanted casino in one of the poorest areas possible and claim it will benefit the local community.

And with the government’s adopted new stance on positive discrimination which does not include “the less well off” nor does it state “local people for local jobs”. So why will that casino benefit the local community?

The government brought in the minimum wage and then not long after opened the doors to Eastern Europe workers, who are legally able to work for less than the new minimum wage, this meant that any poor suffering British worker who was willing to work for less than the minimum wage in order to feed their family would be breaking the Law. Also any Company who employed BRITISH workers and paid them less than the minimum wage was also breaking the Law…so who do you think will be employed?

I feel most of the money the casino makes will not be put back into the community or even Manchester; I feel the directors or owners will be looking at new investments and ventures around the world just like all business people, the last thing on their minds is how well the locals are doing, especially if the work force does not consist of local people and that the less well off local people are not their customers.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

OK fair enough but your whole piece is a negative criticism of both the decision and the impact the Casino will have.

How about some constructive suggestions?

BTW, (not that I'm for one minute suggesting that Manchester should, could or will become another Las Vegas) before the Casinos were established in Las Vegas and some very clever marketing was done by the then albeit rather shady owners to attract real names to both visit and perform in the middle of the desert, the town was one of the poorest run down mining towns in the whole of the USA. Even the coal miners of West Virginia were better off than the average Las Vegan worker.

See my previous post about where Las Vegas is now - and not just in terms of gambling income.

Finally, before posting erroneous information about the minimum wage, it might be worthwhile checking.

See:Acas - National Minimum Wage

[bazzor]

I can't for the life of me think of anything constructive to suggest about the casino because I don’t think the community will benefit… how can a poor community benefit from a casino? Would you employ poor local people where money is concerned and trust them if their friends were members?

I was fully aware of the lower wages set out by the government which relate to teenagers, but this is not what is happening, what is happening is the newly targeted voters of Labour, the ‘middle class’ and corporate business, they are the ones to benefit from the new influx of cheap labour, it now means that companies can hire 2 skilled workers from say, Poland for the price of one skilled British worker, no casino will hire unskilled 17 or 18 year olds from the local community (who by the way, could be seen as a liability) when they could employ skilled mature Eastern Europeans for the same wage.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

You completely miss my point re your statement about the minimum wage. The following is totally inaccurate and you haven't corrected it.

Originally Posted by bazzor

The government brought in the minimum wage and then not long after opened the doors to Eastern Europe workers, who are legally able to work for less than the new minimum wage, this meant that any poor suffering British worker who was willing to work for less than the minimum wage in order to feed their family would be breaking the Law. Also any Company who employed BRITISH workers and paid them less than the minimum wage was also breaking the Law…so who do you think will be employed?

As to your point regarding poor local people handling money in a situation where their friends are members, I'm not sure where you are coming from.

First you imply that no locals could afford to be members, now you are saying that some locals will be members and are , I think, trying to make out that this could lead to dishonesty which will mean locals will not be employed. You obviously have no idea of Casino security. Even if the scenario you put up could exist, there have been many instances over the years in many areas of the leisure industry where large amounts of locally generated cash have been handled by "poor local employees" without any dishonesty.

Did you bother to read my earlier post about Las Vegas, or do any research yourself?

If you can't see any benefit in a casino, is there ANY form of development/employment opportunity you could propose where the scenario of migrant workers accepting legally offered pay would not be taken up?

[aidanorourke]

Phil, I'm still not clear about the minimum wage legislation. Can you elucidate:

Is it legal for Polish immigrant workers to be paid below the minimum wage?
Is it illegal for a company to pay British workers below the minimum wage? (I think it is).

Whatever about the details of the law, I share Bazzor's unease about any major regeneration scheme based on gambling, which I personally disapprove of and think is a bad thing.

I am quite happy for people to do it if they want to, it's none of my business what other people do.

But within the context of east Manchester, an area where many people have to exist on relatively low incomes, a giant gambling complex seems just... tacky. And when it's been put there by the government, even more so.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

The ACAS page I referred to is the most straightforward and simple laying out of the law as it stands. It is TOTALLY illegal for companies not to pay the minimum wage to persons employed who are 22 and over and not listed in para 3 of that page. There are NO other exceptions.

There is an urban myth circulating both in the UK and Ireland that people from Eastern Europe don't have to be paid as much and is being used to inflate anti-Eastern European worker feeling. It comes from the fact that workers from those countries working legally are prepared to accept the minimum wage whereas the natives of the two countries reject that level of pay as "not enough". Also, the self employed (who are exempt) will work for less than their counterparts in the two countries. Trying getting a UK or Irish plasterer or plumber and check their rates IF they turn up. The Poles will turn up and charge less.

Whilst I accept your reservations re gambling, I get the impression that you would have been comfortable if the scheme had gone to Blackpool.

As far as being tacky goes, was the production of Rolls Royce (and now Bentley) cars in a poor area of Crewe tacky? Was and is production of clothes and leatherwear in Cheetham Hill to sell at inflated prices in high class shops in London and abroad, tacky because people were paid minimal piece work rates and the bosses arrived in R-Rs and Jaguars or is it that the work that "bazzor" rejects for the Brits in a Casino is not thought of as "real" work and lacks "dignity" of hard manual labour.

I'm sorry but, whatever the rights and wrongs of gambling, the Casino will bring real jobs from now - the planning phase - through the construction phase, in its operation and as a spin off in a range of industries and services. If the locals can't be bothered to try for the jobs and take advantage of what's on offer, that's their problem.

Finally, what is the difference between working at the Casino and working at Belle Vue - which drew the bulk of its labour from Gorton, Longsight, Phillips Park, Openshaw, Ardwick and Cheetham Hill where the entertainment was not cheap compared to the average manual wage, where drink was available in a wide range of outlets, Bingo was available along with coin operated slot machines with the then legal maximum payout and the profits went to a few second generation Italian immigrants who lived in luxury in the South of England?

[aidanorourke]

All valid points, though for me there's a big difference between a superb quality luxury car and a place of gambling.

As for going to Blackpool, it's just that the Casino somehow fits into the existing character of the town, and Blackpool Council have actively campaigned for it.

But I admit there's a touch of 'Not In My Back Yard' in my thinking too. Blackpool is 61 miles away and Eastlands is 1 mile from where I live, Longsight / Victoria Park!

If it's happening, then it's happening so the best thing is to make the most of it. If I received a lucrative commission to photograph the construction of the development, I'd doubt if I'd turn it down!

The question of who will work there and at what rate of pay and whether the locals will benefit is all crucial to the issues surrounding the Super Casino and well worth discussing.

I know that Bazzor lives not far from the supercasino site and I think he is expressing the misgivings of a lot of people in the area. The more we can understand the implications, opportunities, threats, pros and cons of the development, the better.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Surely the people in the area should go out to make the jobs their own. At my time at Belle Vue at least 60% of the operations management structure were from within a 4 mile radius.

Belle Vue was not the best payer but the managers - and many of their long serving staff - had worked themselves into positions of trust and responsibility, were proud of what they did, even though they despaired of the bosses in London and were earning good money compared to many of their neighbours considering few had any academic or other qualifications and had learned their jobs by starting at the bottom.

Having been to Reno, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, all places with large Hispanic populations, I wouldn't have said that the locals have been disadvantaged in terms of getting and holding jobs. In fact, the well paid jobs such as Security, Pit Boss and other managers are often filled by members of the local WASP population with long term residence as their credentials are easily checked out, they have ties to the area and are unlikely to risk being caught "fiddling" in their own communities and many have whole families employed at various levels of management and workforce - which rather reminds me of Belle Vue.