Frontier set for weekend celebration

Friday, Jan. 30, 1998 | 9:54 a.m.

Final preparations were being made today for a massive weekend celebration on the Strip hailing the end of the 6 1/2-year Frontier hotel-casino strike.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka will watch the picket line come down and lead 550 strikers and a host of local and national labor leaders back into the Frontier early Sunday morning, when new owner Phil Ruffin takes over.

More than two dozen elected officials, including Gov. Bob Miller and Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., plan to be on hand for the celebration, which begins with a huge block party on Fashion Show Drive and the Strip about 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Culinary Union and four other locals -- Bartenders 165, Teamsters 995, Operating Engineers 501 and Carpenters 1780 -- have been on strike since Sept. 21, 1991, in what has become the nation's longest and most publicized labor dispute.

"This is probably the biggest victory organized labor has seen in the last 25 years," Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Jim Arnold said. "It's a victory everybody in the country can share a piece of."

Trumka, who walked the picket line several times, hailed the strike as a symbol of the labor movement's newfound momentum in the 1990s.

"We're not just celebrating a win at the Frontier, we're pointing to what can be the future of working families in cities around the country," said Trumka, the nation's No. 2 labor leader. "The Frontier shows that when workers and communities fight together, the fight is easier and the wins are bigger."

John Wilhelm, secretary-treasurer of the international Culinary Union, described Saturday's celebration as a "really historic event" in the labor movement.

"For Culinary members here in Las Vegas, it's a very exciting time, and for the strikers it's an exciting time," Wilhelm said. "But it's also a time of mixed emotions.

"The strikers have carried a burden for 6 1/2 years that really is superhuman. They won a great victory, but they paid a great price."

Wilhelm said the strikers had to deal with much stress and disruption in their lives.

Among the national labor leaders planning to participate in Saturday's rally will be Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers. Both walked the picket line with the strikers.

Following an hour of speeches Saturday night, the strikers and several thousand supporters will assemble on the Strip about 11:30 p.m. and prepare to march back into the hotel at the stroke of midnight for the first time in more than six years.

Two lanes of traffic will be blocked off on the Strip as the workers prepare to re-enter the Frontier.

Ruffin, who will receive a key to the city in hero's fashion, officially assumes control at 12:01 a.m Sunday.

"I'm licking my chops," Ruffin said Thursday in anticipation of taking over.

Ruffin, a Kansas industrialist who owns a dozen Marriott hotels across the country and in the Bahamas, bought the once-troubled resort in late October from Margaret Elardi for $165 million.

He has agreed to open the hotel-casino, which is being renamed the New Frontier, with a union contract.

Ruffin said he's making room to hire back about 280 of the original strikers who want to return to work. More than 100 of the current Frontier workers are being laid off to accommodate the strikers, he said.

Labor leaders have promised to help bring business to the New Frontier to restore it to its past glory before the strike.

Ruffin plans extensive remodeling.

"We've been successful in the past in turning around hotels, and I think this will be easy," Ruffin said.

The Frontier, he said, is in better shape than he thought because Elardi recently spent $9 million installing new carpeting and restoring hotel rooms.

Ruffin disclosed that he signed a 99-year lease with Elardi Thursday to develop an additional 15 acres adjacent to the 26-acre New Frontier. He said he plans to build another hotel-casino project there.

Before Saturday night's festivities, the Frontier's casino will close down for about 14 hours so that Elardi's cash and chips can be replaced with Ruffin's. The Gaming Control Board will oversee the transition. The casino will re-open at midnight.

Today, the Culinary Union planned to get a head start on the celebration by presenting special plaques to two civic leaders they consider heroes of the strike.

Sahara hotel-casino owner William Bennett was to be honored in the morning for providing meals three times a day to the strikers at his own expense for more than five years.

Bennett, who began the practice while chairman of Circus Circus Enterprises, also was to receive a proclamation from Gov. Miller honoring his "commitment and dedication" to the Frontier strikers.

The proclamation praises Bennett for having "touched and enriched the lives of many Nevadans in a meaningful and positive way."

This afternoon, the Culinary Union was to honor Dr. Elias Ghanem for treating any striker who didn't have health insurance during the protracted labor dispute.

Ghanem, one of the premier political fund-raisers in the state, delivered many of the 107 babies born during the strike that captured the hearts of labor leaders across the country.

Before Ruffin bought the hotel, the AFL-CIO's executive council passed a resolution condemning the Elardi family's failure to resolve the dispute.

Trumka had created a special committee, chaired by former Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, to look into allegations of alleged spying and dirty tricks on the strikers.

The allegations, which also attracted the attention of the FBI and Gaming Control Board, were first reported in the SUN.

The AFL-CIO committee was disbanded without ever holding a meeting when the hotel was sold.