Food fight at Frontier

David W. Crowell

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 9:15 a.m.

First published on Sept. 20, 1991.

Culinary workers are set to walk off the job Saturday morning at the Frontier Hotel-Casino and three other unions are expected to join the strike,

Union leaders were expected to announce plans for a 6 a.m. strike, approved by Culinary members on a vote 464-7 Thursday.

Officials from the Culinary, Teamsters Operating Engineers and the Carpenters unions are poised to lend their support in the showdown against the Strip resort owned by the Elardi family.

The Culinary workers have gone two years without a contract. The other unions are without new

"I like working, making a living," Gary Jones a pot washer in the Frontier's Kitchen said after he voted for the strike. "But you've got to have a future."

Jones has worked at the Frontier for two years. Since the old contract expired, he said, wages for his job and for other jobs have been cut by the hotel's management.

"I've lost 35 cents an hour already," he said. "They're bringing in new people at a dollar less an hour. It's just not right at all."

Jim Arnold, secretarytreasurer of Culinary Local 226, says the strike is over unfair labor practices and not economics. It is an important distinction legally if the hotel hires replacement workers for the strikers. Labor law allows economic strikers to be permanently replaced.

Arnold pointed to six unfair labor practice complaints filed by the National Labor Relations Board against the hotel in recent months, including allegations of taking away workers' pensions, firings for union activity and bad faith bargaining.

The two sides met briefly in August but have not negotiated in earnest since February 1990 when the hotel's representatives put their last offer on the table and then implemented it without the union's consent.

The Culinary union has targeted its efforts at Margaret Elardi.

"If she wants to come to her senses and get this thing resolved, she has until 6 a.m.," Arnold said. "She's out to destroy this community, there's no doubt in my mind."

During a meeting before the strike vote, Arnold told his members that Elardi specifically wanted to destroy the union.

"Maggie does not feel you have the courage to stick together for your self respect and dignity," he said. "We will prove her wrong."

Culinary union officials have been preparing the Frontier membership for a strike, said Hattie Canty, the local's president.

"We've planned this for some time. It's something our members have to do," she said. "It's the only way for us to survive in Las Vegas."

The picket lines are scheduled to go up around the hotel at 6 a.m. Saturday, Arnold said.

"We're going to have a strong, aggressive picket line," he said. "But it's going to be legal."