Hot Springs casino ups minimum wage for hourly workers

Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort announced Monday the minimum wage for employees who don't receive tips will rise to $13 an hour from $9.75 an hour, effective at the end of the month.

The Hot Springs attraction said employees who receive tips will see their minimum wage rise to $6 an hour. The pay for employees who receive tips ranges from $2.76 an hour for cocktail servers on the racetrack side to $5.50 an hour for casino dealers, according to Jennifer Hoyt, the facility's spokeswoman.

The pay boost affects 970 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees and comes during a $100 million expansion of the resort.

The project includes six new barns, a 28,000-square-foot casino expansion; additional dining options including a fine dining restaurant; a 200-room, seven-story luxury hotel; and a 14,000-square-foot event center that includes meeting rooms and a ballroom that will accommodate 1,400 for a concert and 1,000 for a banquet. The project also includes valet parking and redesigning and adding more parking spaces.

"Oaklawn's success is because of our team members," Oaklawn President Louis Cella said in a news release "And, we are making this change to show that investing in our employees is just as important as the investment we're making in our facility and its expansion."

The expansion was announced last November, shortly after voters approved Constitutional Amendment 100, which allows casinos at the state's two existing racetracks and one each in Pope and Jefferson counties.

The racetrack and casino has between 650 and 700 people on its payroll now, but that total rises to about 1,500 during the live-racing season, Hoyt said. The track hosts live racing from late January to early May.

The Oaklawn announcement gives its employees a minimum wage that is higher than the state minimum wage will be for the foreseeable future.

Issue 5, approved by voters in 2018, raised the state's mandated minimum wage to $9.25 an hour on Jan. 1 from $8.50. It rises to $10 an hour on Jan. 1 next year and $11 an hour on Jan. 1, 2021.

But the Oaklawn pay falls short of the minimum wage Arkansas Children's Hospital announced for its employees last October. The minimum wage for entry-level positions at the Little Rock medical facility is $14 an hour, which took effect Jan. 1.

Earlier this year, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said it would raise its minimum wage to $14 an hour, starting July 1. The move, which affected more than 1,500 employees, was prompted by the need to better recruit and retain staff, according to UAMS officials. The health organization is the state's largest employer, with more than 10,000 workers across facilities in 73 counties.

Business on 09/24/2019

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