Frontier strikers lauded by politicos

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 9:54 a.m.

National labor leaders and political figures rallied around the Frontier hotel-casino strikers one more time on Thursday.

This time it was to praise the workers as heroes in a hard-fought union victory that has become a symbol of organized labor's renewed energy in America.

Vice President Al Gore, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, all in town for an AFL-CIO executive council meeting, led the way in singling out 550 workers from five Las Vegas unions who walked the picket line for more than six years.

"They struggled together and suffered together, and they were victorious together," Gore told reporters at an early afternoon news conference at the Culinary Union's training center.

Gore spent some time Thursday with Gloria Hernandez, a Frontier striker who became a U.S. citizen in the sixth year of the epic labor dispute that ended Jan. 31 when new owner Phil Ruffin took over the Strip resort.

The vice president said Hernandez, a Culinary Union member, told him the strikers were co-workers when the picket line went up Sept. 21, 1991, but became a family by the time the strike ended.

At Bally's hotel-casino after addressing the executive council late in the afternoon, Gephardt said in an interview the Frontier victory means the labor movement is "alive and well" in this country.

"It sent a loud, clear message that there's a better way to do things," Gephardt said. "There's a better way to run a business. There's a better way to get productive employees. There's a better way to create profit and higher wages for everybody."

Later, at a lavish evening reception at the New Frontier for the strikers, Gephardt marveled at the irony of seeing many of the strikers back inside the Strip resort.

"What a wonderful sweet victory to be in this place tonight," Gephardt said, as he stood on the same podium with Ruffin and AFL-CIO leaders, including President John Sweeney.

Gephardt said signing a union contract and hiring back the Frontier strikers six weeks ago will prove to be one of the best decisions Ruffin will ever make.

The Missouri Democrat predicted the Frontier, with the help of organized labor, will return to its former days of prosperity.

"People will want to come to the place where the Frontier workers stood for principle and won," Gephardt said.

Several hundred strikers and labor leaders from around the country dined on fresh shrimp and crab at the reception, hosted by international Culinary Union President Ed Hanley and Secretary-Treasurer John Wilhelm, whose leadership was credited with keeping the strikers focused on their mission.

Herman, saying she was glad to be back in what Sweeney has described as the "hottest union city in America," told the strikers they have single-handedly renewed the faith of the entire nation.

"You have reminded us of what it really means to fight with dignity, with respect and for opportunity for all," she said.

"So now, when we go to Mr. Webster's dictionary and we look up the word courage, we will see the Frontier strikers."

Sweeney thanked the workers for giving the country a "six-year demonstration about what solidarity, commitment and loyalty are all about.

"Your strike will serve as a beacon for tens of thousands of trade unionists for tens of thousands of years to come," he said.

Earlier, Sweeney and Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, led a standing ovation for several dozen of the strikers and their children, as they marched inside the 50-member executive council meeting at Bally's to receive special recognition for their efforts.

Joe Daugherty, the Frontier strike coordinator who never took a day off during the labor dispute, told the council members the workers couldn't have held out so long without the support of the entire labor movement.

"We never gave up, never gave in, stood together, stood firm until our victory, our commitment, our struggle for solidarity and our toughness won out," Daugherty said.

The Culinary Union showed an emotional 15-minute film to the executive council that captured the essence of the strike, much of it in the own words of the strikers.

The film brought tears to eyes of many in the room and resulted in another standing ovation.

Back at the Frontier reception, Bubba Turner, a sauce cook featured prominently in the film, said it meant a lot to him to return to work.

Asked what it meant to be celebrating the end of the nation's longest strike at the Frontier with the biggest names in the labor movement, Turner responded: "It's unbelievable. It's so beautiful."