Workers picket outside Casino Woodbine after being locked out by their employer

Nearly 1,000 employees at Casino Woodbine have been locked out by their employer, days after voting to reject its latest contract offer.

The workers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada were locked out as of 12:01 a.m. on Monday.

The lockout comes after members of the union voted to reject an offer from One Toronto Gaming just last week.

“On April 27th, we reached an agreement with PSAC’s bargaining committee that included a 16 per cent increase in wages over four years, market adjustments in wages for certain roles, a signing bonus of $1,000 for Full Time team members and $500 for Part Time team members, as well as significant improvements in benefits,” Woodbine Casino said in a statement on Monday night.

Theo Lagakos, who is the local president for PSAC DCL 533 Casino Woodbine, told CP24 that the dispute with the employer largely stems from concerns over part-time workers’ rights.

“We have 50 per cent of the workforce over here that's part time and for the longest time the workers have wanted to have at least three days, three shifts per week, in order to maintain their standard of living and the employer is not budging,” he said. “They don't want to guarantee any hours of work. And that's extremely problematic to people. We feel that these jobs are very precarious in that way.”

Lagakos said that there are 945 members of the PSAC employed at Casino Woodbine, with those workers filling a number of jobs, ranging from table dealers, to cleaning staff and cashiers.

According to Casino Woodbine, discussions with PSAC continued late into Sunday night and further improvements were offered, but were not taken to members.

At this point it is unclear what impact the lockout is having on the casino’s operations.

“It's really up to the employer (when talks resume). They're the ones who have locked us out,” Lagakos said. “They're the ones that are not coming to the table. So we're just going to wait out there until they decide to change their mind.”