Picket lines due at Taj Mahal casino Friday

ATLANTIC CITY (AP) — Picket lines were to go up outside Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort as union members planned to protest the court-ordered termination of their health insurance and pension plans.

The picketing was scheduled to run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday.

The demonstration comes a day after billionaire Carl Icahn told The Associated Press the struggling casino "will almost certainly close" and that he wishes he had never answered the phone when Trump Entertainment Resorts approached him about taking over the Taj Mahal and investing $100 million to keep it afloat.

Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union is locked in a bitter battle over the future of the casino, which Trump Entertainment Resorts had been threatening to close on Nov. 13 if it did not get relief from having to pay insurance and pension costs. Now that it has that relief, the company says it will keep the Taj Mahal open through November, but still may shut it by the end of the year if it cannot get $175 million in state aid — a request New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney already has rejected.

Last Friday, a federal bankruptcy court judge in Delaware granted the company's request to terminate its contract with the union. Workers' health coverage ends on Oct. 31.

"We need to fight and get back what they took away from us," said Rafael Gonzalez, who has served customers in a players' club lounge for nearly 20 years. "We deserve to have health care coverage when we work so hard for this company. I am very angry about this; it's not right."

The company declined to comment.

It is pursuing a complicated plan to transfer ownership to Icahn, who would pump $100 million into the casino, but only if the state aid can be secured

Bob McDevitt, the union president, said the company "lied in court" when it said it would close the Taj Mahal on Nov. 13 if it did not quickly secure all the elements of its rescue plan for the casino.

"Mr. Icahn thinks he can get what he wants by using bankruptcy court and hiding behind judges," he said. "In New Jersey, in this market, that's not the final arbitrator of how it's going to be. The workers are going to be heard and we are going to tell the world that this is not OK."

Icahn says the union refuses to work with him to keep the casino open, adding that it "is instead doing everything to destroy the possibility of saving the jobs of over 3,000 employees."

Earlier this month, McDevitt and 23 other union members were arrested when they sat down in the Atlantic City Expressway and blocked traffic entering the resort to protest the cutbacks Trump Entertainment was seeking from the judge. The union has also contacted Taj Mahal meeting and convention customers, asking them to take their business elsewhere.

(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed)