Accident kills Edward Hanley, Culinary president from 1973-98

David Strow

Monday, Jan. 10, 2000 | 11:38 a.m.

Edward Hanley Sr., the powerful Chicago union leader who headed the Culinary Union for more than 25 years, was killed Friday in a traffic accident in northern Wisconsin.

The 67-year-old Hanley was killed in a head-on collision on a country highway in Land O' Lakes Friday night, sheriff's officials said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Hanley rose from Chicago bartender to head of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, a position he held for more than 25 years. He was succeeded in 1998 by John Wilhelm, who was personally selected by Hanley to take the union into the next century.

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union is known in Las Vegas as the Culinary Union.

"When I first heard about (Hanley's death), it hit me pretty hard," said Jim Arnold, secretary-treasurer of Las Vegas-based Culinary Local 226, the hotel union's largest local, with more than 40,000 members. "[Hanley] took a lot of heat that he didn't deserve, but he took it and he took it well. He was a great person. He would've done anything in the world for anybody.

"He's someone that's going to be missed by organized labor, that's for sure."

Hanley assumed the top post at the Culinary in 1973. At 41, he was one of the youngest people ever appointed to head an international union. He was close to a number of powerful politicians, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski. He is credited by union officials with placing an emphasis on organizing, a decision that helped the union become the most powerful in Las Vegas.

"For us to go into the future, to double in size, we've got to continue organizing ... that was his foresight," Arnold said.

Though he remained in Chicago throughout his career, Hanley wielded influence over the Las Vegas Strip throughout his career, often meeting informally with hotel officials in an attempt to break negotiating impasses -- though Wilhelm was far more involved in Las Vegas affairs. Hanley's intervention helped end a nine-month strike at Binion's Horseshoe in 1990.

"He was powerful, and used to come to Las Vegas to get involved with meetings," said Michael Green, historian at the Community College of Southern Nevada. "The town was smaller then, less corporate. Hanley may have wielded more invisible influence than a John Wilhelm does nationally, or the Culinary does locally."

His most high-profile intervention came in July 1996, when he directly negotiated with the owners of the New Frontier hotel-casino for a week in an attempt to end a five-year strike at that property, a move that required him to register with the Nevada Gaming Control Board as a union representative. Hanley, however, was unsuccessful in striking a deal with the Elardi family, and the strike continued for more than a year.

Hanley was dogged by accusations of ties to organized crime for much of his tenure, leading to the establishment of a federal monitor in 1998. The monitor found no evidence of mob links, but criticized Hanley for using union funds for personal luxuries, including luxury cars and a Washington, D.C. luxury condominium.

Hanley retired in July 1998 under fire from the monitor, though he denied wrongdoing. He retained his salary of $250,000 a year for life.

"He took a lot of heat, and he deserved all of it, but he took it and he took it well," Arnold said.

With Hanley's retirement, control of the Culinary passed over to Wilhelm, who had been elected secretary-treasurer of the union in 1996.

"Hanley belongs to a different generation of labor leaders," Green said. "John Wilhelm is someone with whom the industry seems to feel it can work. (Hanley) was symbolic of the old days of labor, of knocking heads. He was, in some ways, a relic."