Culinary to picket at Frontier

David W. Crowell

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 9:13 a.m.

Culinary Union workers at the Frontier Hotel-Casino, who have been without a contract since 1989, are ready to walk off the job, a union official said.

The Strip hotel owned by Margaret Elardi is one of a handful of resorts where Culinary Union members are without a contract.

Union members picketed in front of the hotel for about an hour Thursday morning and passed out fliers. The pickets carried signs with a photograph of Elardi on them, saying the hotel owner should bargain with the union in good faith.

I Jim Arnold, the secretarytreasurer of Local 226, called it the first step in a plan to bring the resort's management back to the bargaining table.

"We've got quite a few things planned," Arnold said. He would not discuss the specifics of the union's strategy but he said the workers at the hotel were running out of patience.

"These people are yelling for a strike right now," said Arnold. "We're trying to calm them down. We'd much rather be at the bargaining table than out there on the street."

But a strike is not out of the question. Arnold has already received approval from the Central Labor Council for a strike at the Frontier though he has not asked his membership for a strike vote.

The SUN was unable to contact the hotel's general manager, Tom Elardi, for a response to the union's activities.

Talks between the union and the hotel broke off in February 1990 when the hotel's management put its last offer on the table and then implemented the proposal without union agreement.

Arnold said the hotel's last offer cut workers wages, took them out of the union's health insurance and pension plans, and destroyed the seniority system. Wages at the Frontier run $1 to $2 an hour lower than other resorts on the Strip, the head of the local union said.