Letter: Why did the AFL-CIO stall in supporting Frontier strike

Tuesday, March 4, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Am I being too cynical in noting that the AFL-CIO's recent announcement regarding the five-and-one-half year dispute falls on the heels of International Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer John Wilhelm's appointment to a federal gaming panel? The strike by workers at the Frontier should never have become the nation's longest running strike and, in the best of all worlds, the AFL-CIO should not have sat on its collective hands for years before "discovering" the importance of the Frontier strikers' cause.

I'm certain the strikers at the Frontier must welcome the mother of all unions' declaration of war on the Frontier. Yet, more than asking the AFL-CIO where it's been, it is asking our community where have we been? The Frontier labor strike is more than a labor-management debacle, it is America's longest running conflict between wage-earner and wage-payer on our front doorstep. That is a tragic commentary on our community.

For five and a half years, our elected officials, mostly Democrats, have waxed eloquent on the abuses of the Frontier management and in support of "the workers' cause." From governor to commissioner, their rhetoric has failed to find justice for Joe Daugherty and his 300-plus striking colleagues. Why must we wait to be prodded by outside entities, i.e., Big Labor or Big Government, before this dispute is resolved?

I guess better late than never, eh, AFL-CIO? We will we didn't need you.

Ted DeCorte