Eldorado furloughs 470 workers at two Colorado casinos

The owners of the Isle of Capri and Lady Luck casinos in Black Hawk have informed the state that they will furlough 470 workers as a result of closures tied to the COVID-19 outbreak in Colorado.

“This emergency and these sudden and unexpected circumstances caused the temporary facility closure and adversely affected our business operations,” Christopher Cowen, the interim human resources director for the two casinos, wrote in a letter filed with the Colorado Department of Labor under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), as reported by Denver Post.

Eldorado Resorts announced March 17 that, in accordance with Colorado Governor Polis’s order, it was temporarily suspending casino operations at the Isle of Capri and Lady Luck Black Hawk on that day. The company said it would continue to monitor developments related to COVID-19 and reinforcing its policies as necessary. 

The second biggest WARN filing made public on Monday, at 145 workers, came from Prospect Airport Services, a Illinois-based company that provides skycap and baggage services at airports across the country. Even though Denver International Airport remains open, traffic is down by 90% and the company said it was furloughing 38 skycaps, 94 passenger service assistants, seven dispatchers, three recruiters, a pair of supervisors and one baggage handler.

Almost all of WARN letters to the state since March involve a furlough and in some cases a layoff, made with an assumption that workers will come back once things improve. But Sonder USA, based in San Francisco, said it had dismissed 79 employees and permanently closed its guest experience office at the North Valley Tech Center.