More unions join Frontier pickets

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 9:14 a.m.

SUN STAFF REPORTS

The Culinary Workers are gearing up for a strike at the Frontier Hotel-Casino with picket lines in front of the Strip resort and mailings to its customers.

"We're starting to beef it up," said Johnny LaVoie, a Culinary Workers Local 226 official. "So we're building up to it."

On Thursday afternoon nearly 1,000 members of the boilermakers union, holding its convention in Las Vegas, picketed in front of the hotel for about an hour. Last week, iron workers and California school employees picketed the Frontier in support of the 650 members of the Culinary workers who have been without a contract since 1989.

LaVoie said more rallies are planned as other unions come to Las Vegas for their conventions.

No strike vote has been taken and no deadlines have been set, LaVoie said.

Meanwhile, the union has started a mailing campaign, sending eight-page booklets to customers of the Frontier and areas the union has targeted, LaVoie said.

The union used similar tactics in its 9.5-month strike against the Horseshoe HotelCasino in 1990 with mass mailings and door-to-door campaigns based on research of the hotel's local customers.

"It uses pretty sophisticated methods," LaVoie said.

The booklet said the workers at the Frontier, owned by Margaret Elardi and her family, would be taking a strike vote in the near future. It said the many workers cannot afford the company's health care plan, that there have been no pay raises since February 1990 and pay for some jobs has been cut.

"The members of the Culinary and Bartenders unions hope that the Elardis will not force the city to endure another strike like the one at the Horseshoe," the booklet said. "The Frontier workers want the same contract that we have negotiated at the other Strip hotels."