Says Las Vegas setting new standards for labor movement

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

"And just as surely as New York set the (labor union) standards for the past 100 years, Las Vegas will be setting them for the next 100 years," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a boisterous union rally. He called Las Vegas "the hottest union city in America."

The rally was designed to show support for workers at the Frontier Hotel and Casino, where four unions have been on strike the past 5 1/2 years.

Some 500 people attended the rally at the Culinary Union headquarters. The Culinary has some 40,000 members in Southern Nevada, according to Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Jim Arnold.

The labor chief accused the Frontier of being a "corporate criminal," by spying on workers and guests during the long, bitter strike. He joined other union leaders at the rally in urging Nevada officials to lift the company's gaming license.

"You've turned the Frontier into a national poster child for employer greed and for labor laws that have no teeth," Sweeney told the crowd, which included many of the hotel's striking workers.

The Frontier has refused to sign a labor contract that has been signed by most of the city's hotel-casinos, saying it cannot provide the same benefits paid by larger resorts.

Sweeney, 61, who took over as the nation's union chief in 1995, said he planned to discuss the Frontier strike with the AFL-CIO council, meeting in Los Angeles this week. He said he wants to discuss how the national labor movement can become more involved in trying to end the strike.

Sweeney credited strong labor organizing for Las Vegas' booming economy.

"In other cities where service industries are growing with low levels of union organization, low wages and low benefits are the result," Sweeney said. "In cities like Los Angeles, for instance, the result is sluggish growth, rampant poverty, a health care burden that falls on taxpayers instead of on employers, a weakened tax base, and unhealthy communities that don't attract visitors.

"Here in Las Vegas, you've taken the opposite path: the standard of living here is a union standard, with full-time work, decent wages and benefits and job security. The result is a community with its head held high, one that people want to visit, one that attracts dedicated workers with good skills."

A hotel construction boom in Las Vegas the past eight years has brought the city unparalleled growth, both in the lifeblood gaming industry and also related construction trades.

John Wilhelm, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary's international union, said the city's economic boom is built on "a union foundation."

He said there was a dark side to the economic boom, referring to "employers here who don't get it, who don't understand that low paying jobs will make this community into another poverty-stricken Los Angeles."

Sweeney, who is credited with awakening the slumbering labor movement, told the crowd the stock market has risen 400 percent since 1980, and top corporate CEOs are making 500 percent of what they earned in 1980.

"That's 145 times more than the average factory worker," he said.

"American families tried everything," Sweeney said. "They sent husbands, wives, and teen-age kids into the labor force. They took second and third jobs. Despite their efforts, most families' incomes fell 5 percent between 1989 and 1994."