Frontier meeting pushed

Bob Shemeligian

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 11:32 a.m.

First published on May 19, 1992.

Noting that the Frontier strike is not only bad for the hotel and its employees, but also for the community, state Sen. John Vergiels asked both sides to sit down at the bargaining table with a neutral party.

Vergiels, the Senate majority leader, is asking both sides to submit to arbitration or mediation to settle the sevenmonth-long strike.

"All of us want to be part of the solution, rather than contribute to the problem," Vergiels said Tuesday at a press conference at Caesars Palace.

With him were Sens. Dina Titus Joe Neal and Ray Shaffer and Assemblymen John Norton, Rick Bennett, Bill Petrak and Val Garner. Mayor Jan Laverty Jones also offered support.

Vergiels said the long and bitter strike is affecting the entire community.

"If it only affected the hotel, that would be one thing, but the Frontier is right in the middle of my district (District 3), and it affects everyone," he said. "The strike is affecting other hotels, other businesses and many other people. There's a great deal of traffic that goes by the Frontier. People walk that sidewalk, and they don't want to come here to be face to face with picketers."

Neither Culinary Union Local 226 nor Frontier representatives; attended the press conference, but Jim Arnold, secretarytreasurer of the Culinary, issued a statement that the union "is anxious to have binding arbitration or mediation" to resolve the strike.

"The union is willing to meet anytime, anywhere with an arbitrator or mediator," Arnold said

There was no statement from or General Manager Tom Elardi indicated they would not sit down with a neutral party.

After the prees the press conference, Vergiels drove to the hotel to meet with the Elardis, but the senator was told they were not there.

"I'm going to try again tomorrow," Vergiels said.

"We're trying to be logical and not threatening," He said. "Margaret Elardi has been in this town a long time. She's a fine person, and I know She's concerned about the future of Las Vegas. "

Titus said the idea is simply to get both sides to sit down to talk.