Gore, Gephardt woo labor

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 9:53 a.m.

The two leading Democratic contenders for president in 2000 swept through Las Vegas Thursday wooing labor's support and raising money for the Democratic Party.

Vice President Al Gore and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt both met behind closed doors at Bally's with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, which is convening here for the first time ever.

Both publicly proclaimed their support for labor's renewed organizing efforts and both praised labor's accomplishments in Las Vegas.

Their visits followed President Clinton's Las Vegas trip on Wednesday that focused attention on labor's thriving state of affairs here.

Gore met privately with a half-dozen Las Vegas union members at Bally's Thursday before traveling by motorcade to the Culinary Union's training center on East Fremont Street.

Following a tour of the facility, Gore held a news conference with AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who called the vice president "our friend" and "a friend to working families."

Later Thursday evening, Gore was the star attraction at two fund-raisers at Bally's that collected $1 million for the Nevada Democratic Party.

Gephardt met with reporters in the afternoon at Bally's after his talk with the executive council members.

He then drove to Harrah's for a fund-raiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The event, sponsored by the American Gaming Association, raised about $100,000.

Joining Gephardt at Harrah's were three other top House Democrats, Charles Rangel of New York, Martin Frost of Texas and John Lewis of Georgia.

Frost and Lewis later accompanied Gephardt to a reception attended by Sweeney and other AFL-CIO leaders at the New Frontier honoring the Strip resort's former strikers.

Labor leaders were reluctant to say whether they favored Gore or Gephardt in 2000.

"It's way, way too premature to say who we might support in the year 2000," said John Wilhelm, secretary-treasurer of the international Culinary Union. "But, not to take anything away from Al Gore, Richard Gephardt has been a very good friend."

Gephardt, who said he wasn't in Las Vegas to talk about how he differed from Gore, appointed Wilhelm to serve as labor's representative on a nine-member federal commission that is studying gambling in America.

At the news conference at the Culinary training center, Gore said the Clinton administration has been very clear about where it stands on labor issues.

"We stand for workers' freedom to exercise their right to organize without employer interference," he said. "We stand for workers' rights to choose to better their lives by joining unions if they want to do it. And we're not going to let our progress be unraveled by an anti-worker, anti-union Republican Congress."

Gore, who predicted that Democrats would regain the House this year, also attacked the Paycheck Protection Act being pushed by Republicans in Congress to restrict labor's role in politics.

"We're not fooled by any efforts to dress up so-called paycheck protection as campaign finance reform when it's being done by the very people who defeated real campaign finance reform," he said.

Gore pledged to work to plug loopholes at the National Labor Relations Board that allow companies with a "cadre of expensive lawyers" to stall and frustrate organizing efforts.

He cited the case of the Santa Fe hotel-casino which through the NLRB has been able to put off recognizing the Culinary Union, even though workers there voted to be organized five years ago. Santa Fe worker Charlene Slaby, a member of the Culinary Union's organizing committee, was among those on the podium behind the vice president as he spoke.

Gore said the labor movement "has kind of taken off" in Las Vegas, which has been described by Sweeney as the "hottest union city" in the country.

"It's by far the fastest growing city in the country," Gore said. "The atmosphere of hope and opportunity brings people here searching for a better life, and they've got the gumption to say, 'I'm not going to work for dirt wages. I want something that gives me dignity and the ability to raise my family and have a middle class lifestyle."'

Gephardt said in an interview that he, too, was "impressed" with what's happening in Las Vegas.

At the Culinary training center, chef instructor Arlys Klundt said he liked what he saw of Gore, who flipped toast, helped prepare a deviled egg and showed off his ability to handle cutlery in front of the staff and students.

"If he keeps working for the unions, if he does the same thing President Clinton does, I'll be backing him 100 percent, Klundt said.

Arthur Nathan, vice president of human resources at Bellagio and the lead trustee of the training center, said the vice president's visit has given the center the kind of attention it deserves.

"We think this is a great story of how management and labor can get together and resolve their needs and help the community," he said.

The center, established in 1993 as part of the Culinary Union's collective bargaining agreement, has an annual $1.2 million budget.

From the training center, Gore returned to Bally's for a series of other private meetings with religious leaders, politicos and UNLV students.

Gore met for about a half hour with a marketing and advertising class taught by Professor Hugh Branigan at UNLV's Greenspun School of Communications.

The students presented the vice president with a marketing campaign they put together to heighten awareness of the disease Lupus.

Gore told the students he was impressed with their quality of work.

Both Gore and Gephardt went their separate ways after leaving Las Vegas. Gore headed to the Californian Democratic Party Convention in Los Angeles, and Gephardt took off for Chicago.

SUN REPORTER Larry Henry contributed to this story.