Columnist Jeff German: Las Vegas now a hotbed on Labor, political fronts

Sunday, March 22, 1998 | 9:31 a.m.

JEFF GERMAN is a senior investigative reporter. His column also appears in the Las Vegas SUN on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at 259-4067 or on the Internet at german@lasvegassun.com

LAS VEGAS always has had sex appeal for the nation's news media.

It used to be that a Las Vegas dateline in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times brought news of hidden mob influence on the Strip. If there was nothing to report on the mob front, a newspaper always could rely on an interview with Wayne Newton or a bare-breasted showgirl to attract readers.

But those were the old days, when organized crime still had a foothold over the casino industry.

Today, Las Vegas has gone corporate. The biggest news coming out of the Wall Street Journal is talk of proposed mergers by casino giants, like the one between Hilton Hotels Corp. and Circus Circus Enterprises.

As legalized gambling has spread across America (it's now in 48 states in some form), more communities have come to view this city, where the cost of living is low and unemployment is practically nonexistent, as gambling's biggest success story.

During this decade, Las Vegas has led the nation in growth. It's the land of milk and honey, where people with a past can start a new life, where an average citizen can become rich with the pull of a slot machine, and where in a flash a high-rise hotel with a man-made volcano -- or a gated community with a lush golf course -- can spring up from barren desert.

Today, as more people clamor for the secret to our success, society has begun to figure out that Las Vegas is indeed a dynamic community.

Congress has taken an interest in Las Vegas and the spread of gambling across the country. Last year, it created a nine-member commission to study the industry.

The AFL-CIO, looking to give organized labor a shot in the arm, has discovered that Las Vegas is fertile union territory. The nation's largest labor group has chosen to launch here its most ambitious organizing drive ever.

Politicians have learned quickly how easily this city and its wealthy casino industry can be tapped for campaign contributions. Hardly a week goes by without a member of Congress slipping into town for a handout.

With all of this attention, national newspapers and magazines and television and cable networks have been devoting unprecedented coverage to Las Vegas.

Not only is Las Vegas, as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says, the "hottest union city in America," it is the hottest city in the country. Period.

Look at the events here of the past week.

For the first time ever, the influential 50-member executive council of the AFL-CIO met in Las Vegas.

Watching the parade of some of the nation's leading politicians, including President Clinton, pay their respects to the labor bosses at Bally's, you would have sworn you were in Washington.

On Wednesday, President Clinton, touting Las Vegas as a place where the American dream can come true, was on center stage touring the Southern Nevada Carpenters Regional Training Center on East Bonanza Road.

That was followed by competing whirlwind visits on Thursday by Vice President Al Gore and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, the two leading Democratic contenders for president in 2000.

Both were here to court the political support of the labor leaders and raise money for the Democratic Party.

Gore's presence at an evening rally at Bally's raised $1 million for the Nevada Democratic Party. Gephardt helped the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee collect $100,000 at a fund-raiser at Harrah's. Three other prominent House Democrats, Charles Rangel of New York, Martin Frost of Texas and John Lewis of Georgia, were on hand, as well.

Labor Secretary Alexis Herman also was in town to address the AFL-CIO executive council.

Herman took time out to attend a reception at the New Frontier in honor of the striking workers who returned to work Jan. 31 after more than six years on the picket line. The Frontier strike, the longest in the nation, had captured the hearts of the entire labor movement.

In her remarks, Herman told the strikers, most members of the Culinary Union, that they had redefined the word courage and renewed the faith of the entire nation.

Gore focused more eyes on the Culinary Union when he toured its acclaimed training center on East Fremont Street earlier in the day.

Two days before the hoopla surrounding the AFL-CIO meeting, Las Vegas and its casino industry attracted more national attention 3,000 miles away in Boston.

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission held its second meeting on the road there, and Nevada kept a high profile.

Three of Gov. Bob Miller's top aides, including Chief of Staff Jim Mulhall and press secretary Richard Urey, showed up. So did Rob Powers, public relations director for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The aides were preparing for the study commission's planned visit to Las Vegas in November. The trip is likely to bring much more media coverage here.

Las Vegas, it seems, has a lot going for itself these days.

"This is a great city," Sweeney said last week. "There are so many good reasons to be in Las Vegas."

It's called sex appeal.