Strike dangers will be heard

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

First published Sept. 9, 1991.

SUN STAFF REPORTS

An AFL-CIO executive is expected to warn delegates to this week's Laborers union national convention of the danger a strike at the Frontier Hotel-Casino might pose for the city's union-convention business.

Thomas Donahue, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, will be a featured speaker Tuesday at the Laborers International Union of North America convention. He will hold a news conference tonight to discuss the local labor dispute.

Members of Culinary Workers Local 226 at the Frontier have been without a contract since 1989, and in recent months other unions, holding conventions in Las Vegas, have picketed the hotel, drawing fire from the hotel's management.

The Laborers union's 20th general convention opened today for 2,100 delegates from 700 locals across the nation. The convention is held every five years to select the union's general officers and determine its direction in the coming years.

A number of political figures, including Gov. Bob Miller and Democratic presidential hopeful, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, were scheduled to speak today.

Other opening-day speakers are Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood, California Rep. Esteban Torres; and Missouri Rep. William Clay. The keynote speaker will be Angelo Fosco, the union's general president.

Two other labor leaders will join Donahue on Tuesday's schedule - Robert A. Georgine, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, and Gordon Wilson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labor.

Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones will speak to the convention Wednesday morning, as will former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Robert McCormick, president of the National Constructors Association, and John Gentlemen, executive vice president of Martin Segal Co.

On Thursday, the delegates will hear from Peterson Zah, president of the Navajo nation.

The majority of the union's 500,000 members work in the construction industry but its membership also includes a significant number of people employed in the manufacturing of building materials, health care and public service sectors.