Woodbine Entertainment Group Cuts Customer Service

Racetrack teletheatres (off-track betting facilities) across the GTA are going tellerless.

Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) is pushing ahead with plans to automate all GTA teletheatres, threatening jobs at a time when attendance is booming and teletheatres are raking in huge profits. They are cutting off the important human element in Ontario’s gaming industry.

Ontario’s lottery and gaming sector was built to diversify the provincial economy with promises of corporate responsibility and the creation of good jobs in our communities.

Each year, millions of our public dollars help boost revenues for WEG and now they’re needlessly cutting out customer service employees. This doesn’t add up.

Real-life mutuel tellers currently play a vital role in the racing business. We provide quality service directly to customers. We understand and teach customers the rules of the game. We lend support when it’s most needed as customers place hundreds of thousands of bets each year.

WEG plans to automate teletheatres in the GTA will put 384 mutuel tellers’ jobs at risk. This makes no sense – especially since WEG raked in over $11.5 million in profits last year.

We’re calling on the company as well as teletheatre operators to stop this aggressive and poorly thought-out plan for more automation, at the expense of customer service. Instead, we’re advocating a common ground approach to technological improvements (as is done in other industries) – one that protects jobs and maintains a high level of customer service for you, the public.

Other service locations in our communities that have instituted automated machines (including banks, supermarkets, airports and transit stations) still employ live staff to ensure quality customer service is delivered. Woodbine is forcing automation on its customers. No compromises.

Shouldn’t it be the customer’s choice?

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You can help!

Contact your Member of Provincial Parliament

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Ask them: Why is the Ontario government allowing the horse racing industry to eliminate good paying jobs with benefits all while they are receiving millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money each year through the Ontario Lottery Corporation slot profits?

Ask them: Why are long term employees who have contributed to the success of the race track operations now being replaced by automation?

Ask them: Why contracting out to private owners helps the Ontario economy when these contracts are replacing good paying jobs?

Ask them: Who contributes more to the Ontario economy, a long-term employee living and working in Ontario or rich foreign owner?