Club Casablanca Employees Strike for Health Benefits

A small crowd of striking workers picketed the Brattle Street entrance to the Club Casablanca yesterday, pressing their demands for health benefits, increased wages, and sick and vacation pay.

The restaurant was closed yesterday due to the strike.

The 40 waiters, waitresses, cooks, and bartenders struck after two months of unsuccessful negotiations between the store's management and Local 26 of the Hotel. Restaurant. Institutional Employees and Bartenders Union.

In the final negotiating session, restaurant owners asked workers to accept a wage freeze and a ten cent pay increase in place of health insurance, said union President Domenie M. Bozzotto.

"That's not negotiations, that's Howdy Doody Time," Bozzotto said, adding that the offer actually decreases the employees' wage and benefits.

Both sides have expressed willingness to return to the negotiating table, but Bozzotto said he felt that the owners would have to make the first move.

"They have to come to the table with some respect for the workers."

Store owner and General Manager Sari Abul-Jubein refused to comment on the situation yesterday.

"Club Casablanca can not afford to meet the financial demands of the union and pay off its creditors," said Andrew L. Eisenberg, a labor attorney representing the owners, adding "There's just not enough money there."

The Club declared bankruptcy in June 1983, according to Richard R. Erricola, a financial analyst at the US Trustees Office in Boston.

Bozzotto said that the restaurant took in more than a million dollars in 1982 and that the union's demands, which he said would cost the club about $30,000 a year, represent only a small portion of the club's budget.

Most workers support the strike, but some are "worried that the strike will close the business down for good," said cook Jonathan F. Brown.

But he said he felt the strike was necessary "I've worked for a lot of restaurants over the past six years and I've never worked for one that was as cheap and tight as this one.