Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Culinary scores in East

Friday, Oct. 15, 1999 | 8:53 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

AS THE WAL-MART forces continue their local struggle to open "box" style supermarkets much bigger than their present stores, the unions have become the target of critics. Some people have gone so far as spreading the stories that everything would be OK if it weren't for the unions. Strangely, the union and Clark County Commission bashers don't discuss the problems Wal-Mart has created and faced in several other locations both near and far from Clark County and the state of Nevada.

At the same time unions are being attacked in Clark County, the Boston Globe newspaper is carrying a front-page positive story about the 50,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 here in Las Vegas. Let's take some excerpts from the story written by Diane E. Lewis. One that caught my eye is about my friend Hattie Canty.

"Take Hattie M. Canty. She was raising eight children when her husband died of lung cancer in 1975. After charging her older children with care of their younger siblings, she found work as a maid at the Maxim hotel-casino, east of the Las Vegas Strip. She also joined a union.

"Today, 24 years later, Canty is president of the Culinary Workers Union, which has added 26,000 new members to its roster since 1989. Of those, 10,600 are hotel workers who joined over the last year.

" 'For me, joining the union made a difference,' said Canty, 65. 'I got full health care for my family, dental coverage, a pension, and job security. I was able to keep up our home, and four of the kids went to college.' "

Lewis later in the story quoted a respected college professor:

" 'One of the things that has fueled growth in Las Vegas is that it is probably the only place in the country where a chambermaid or busboy can make a decent enough living to buy a house,' said George Lafer, a labor professor at the University of Oregon. 'But the only reason those jobs are decent is because they're union.' "

The Las Vegas unions may be catching hell from critics on local talk shows and in newspapers, but they look pretty good in the eyes of workers and writers in other cities.

All branches of the military, except the U.S. Marines, have over the years lowered their physical demands on recruits during basic training. Additional pay and re-enlistment incentives and easier promotion standards have also been added. Still all except the Marines are struggling to keep up to their authorized personnel strength. Even millions of more dollars spent on expensive television advertising has failed to stop the bleeding and encouraged the needed transfusion from society.

Allow me to suggest that maybe recruiters would be able to have more success by offering young people more challenges and fewer "opportunities" and goodies. At least this may attract the quality of people willing to face danger and carry out missions in world hot spots. It's my opinion we may be underestimating the quality of men and women in our schools and neighborhoods today.

One of the problems not mentioned by Pentagon sources is the lack of support many retired veterans are showing recruiters. Thousands of these retirees feel they have been shortchanged and are reluctant to steer their children and grandchildren down the career path they followed.

You bust your buns for 20 or 30 years believing that decent medical care will be yours upon retirement from military service and you wind up on Medicare. That's right, military retirees over the age of 65 can't get medical care at a military base -- they must go on Medicare.

A USA Today story does point out: "Lawmakers can choose to be treated at one of the military hospitals near the Capitol, Bethesda Naval Hospital in suburban Maryland and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Many take advantage of that perk: Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the oldest member of Congress at 96, was treated at Walter Reed last month."

A recent letter sent to retirees when discussing Congress tells readers: "They also don't understand that being shoved off into Medicare after you reach 65, and then being treated like a charity case, is not keeping their promise!

"And they don't understand that the military's Tricare system not only excludes retirees 65 and over, but it simply is not possible to establish Tricare Prime networks in all areas of the country."

One more reason for young people being recruited for military service to question is the advantages they can earn. The recruiting sergeant can promise them an opportunity to eventually join the lines of Medicare patients with the rest of Americans who stayed at home.