Culinary threatens to set up pickets at baseball union show at Hard Rock

Jerry Crasnick

Monday, Oct. 4, 1999 | 11:25 a.m.

Major League Baseball players might be met by picketing union bus boys and waiters on their way into the Players Choice Awards in Las Vegas in November.

The Culinary Union, upset that the players union will hold its nationally televised awards show at the non-union Hard Rock Hotel, is considering demonstrating in protest.

D. Taylor, Nevada director of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees (Culinary) union, said union officials have sent letters to more than 40 player representatives and other prominent major leaguers asking them to urge the players union to reconsider its choice.

"We shouldn't have a situation where a highly visible union is staying at a non-union place," Taylor said. "We're very much considering picket lines and demonstrations."

The Major League Baseball Players Association, formed in 1968, describes itself on its website as the "strongest, most successful labor organization in sports." Major leaguers earned an average salary of about $1.4 million in 1998, more than double what they made in 1990.

In July, the union signed a two-year agreement to make the Hard Rock Hotel the site of the Players Choice Awards, which will be broadcast live by ESPN on Nov. 5. Judy Heeter, the union's director of licensing, made the announcement.

Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Pedro Martinez, Barry Bonds and Cal Ripken Jr. are among the prominent players who've been named as finalists for the 1999 awards.

Proceeds from the Players Choice Awards benefit the Players Trust for Children, a not-for-profit foundation created and administered by the players. The union moved the show to Las Vegas this year from Orlando, Fla.

Gene Orza, associate general counsel for the players union, said it solicited numerous union hotels for the awards show, but that they all wanted to keep their options open in anticipation of an Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis boxing rematch.

Promoters subsequently scheduled the Holyfield-Lewis fight for Nov. 13 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Orza said the players had already committed to the Hard Rock by then.

"Only a limited number of hotels can do the event because of the size of it," Orza said. "We didn't have any choice this year. We'll do our best to avoid this problem in the future."

Jim Arnold, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, said only four of the city's 30 major casino-resorts employ non-union workers. Arnold said painters, stagehands and other laborers who work at the Hard Rock Hotel are also non-union.

A Hard Rock representative didn't return telephone calls seeking comment.

Arnold said the Players Association never contacted Las Vegas union officials while organizing the Players Choice Awards.

"I doubt anybody looked that hard," Arnold said. "For sure, nobody called us ahead of time to ask what were union hotels."

Las Vegas union officials said they first expressed their displeasure to players union Executive Director Donald Fehr in a letter dated Aug. 19.

In a followup letter dated Sept. 27, Arnold urged major-league players to show solidarity with hotel and restaurant workers. "We hope you will urge the Players Association to reconsider the Hard Rock Hotel in favor of one of the truly outstanding union resorts in Las Vegas," Arnold wrote.

Taylor said unionized cooks, kitchen workers, bus boys, housekeepers and waiters make an average of $11 to $12 an hour, with a benefits package and a pension. Non-union workers earn $2 to $3 less an hour with no pension and inferior benefits, he added.

"Symbolically this is important," Taylor said. "If (New York Yankees pitcher) David Cone is speaking as a union member, a lot more people are going to hear him than Jorge Rivera, who is a union member and kitchen worker at Bally's."

New York Mets player representative Al Leiter, who's been active in the players union's licensing committee, said he was unaware of potential problems involving the Hard Rock Hotel.

"If this had been addressed with the players and we knew it wasn't a union hotel and still went ahead with it, I think we'd be responsible," Leiter said. "But that wasn't the case. The blame should be put on whoever organized this thing."

Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine, the National League's player representative, also was unaware of a potential conflict.

"We've always tried to be mindful and sensitive to other unions," Glavine said. "At the same time, you can't pick up the flag of every cause. You do what you can to be consistent in your support."

Marvin Miller, who was the first executive director of the baseball players union in 1968, said a distinction should be drawn between an informational demonstration -- like the one that might take place in Las Vegas -- and a picket line filled with workers on strike.

Still, Miller said professional athletes have an obligation to support members of other unions whenever possible.

"If the union movement means anything at all, it has to do with solidarity," Miller said.