Columnist Jeff German: Casualties of casino purge are mounting

Friday, Oct. 12, 2001 | 4:26 a.m.

AIRSTRIKES IN AFGHANISTAN and new threats of terrorism in this country haven't been enough to deter Americans from visiting Las Vegas.

Tourism officials again are predicting a big weekend on the Strip for America's adult playland. Many of the megaresorts expect to be booked solid.

And still thousands of Las Vegans remain out of work, victims of callous, cost-cutting measures by casino executives looking to keep profits from slipping in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Calls, letters and e-mails from angry laid-off casino workers and their family members continue to pour into the newsroom.

And there are new horror stories on the homefront to report.

At a big Strip resort, the employee of the year, a loyal hard-working change girl, lost her job in one executive's firing binge. She apparently didn't have enough seniority.

Another well-known casino began transferring people without notice from day to graveyard shift.

Service-oriented departments at another megaresort found their ranks decimated, but still having to carry the same workload.

And there was word that still another Strip casino, which so far has avoided mass layoffs, was gearing up to ax as many as 50 managers this week.

Oh, there was some good news, too.

Gaming companies announced they were bringing back some (far too few, of course) employees, as tourists continued to flock to the city to escape the realities of war.

One casino, the Imperial Palace, sent out an e-mail insisting it has no plans to lay off any of its 2,500 workers. Instead it said it's reducing employee work weeks from 40 to 32 hours.

The Imperial Palace is among a handful of nonunion area casinos that have resisted sending its employees on a permanent vacation.

Companies such as Mandalay Resort Group, MGM MIRAGE and Park Place Entertainment Corp. have Culinary Union contracts in place at their casinos -- and all have ordered mass layoffs.

To many, there's something wrong with this scenario, which seems to be complicating troubles on the Strip.

For the union, long cozy with the giants of the casino industry, it's a dilemma no one thought it would ever face.

The largest and most politically active union in the state, considered the pride and joy of the American labor movement, is having a tough time protecting the jobs of the very workers who made it a success.

"I think we need to get people back to work sooner than later," Culinary Staff Director D. Taylor said during a break in the action last week. "This is a new thing for us."

You can almost sense the urgency in Taylor's voice, as he struggles with the task of getting paychecks for his unemployed members.

How hard can the union push the megaresorts into hiring back people without risking the collapse of it's longstanding detente with those resorts?

Over the past 15 years, the union's strength and dominance in the community has been directly linked to its cordial relationship with the big casinos.

If that relationship crumbles, so does the union.

On the other hand, how long can the union allow a large chunk of its 50,000-plus members to remain out of work?

About 25 percent of its members already have lost their jobs in the purges along the Strip.

Any more bloodletting also could be curtains for the union.

That would give us one one more horror story on the homefront to report, courtesy of the casino industry.