Barbary Coast, Culinary near deal

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Barbary Coast owner Michael Gaughan said Wednesday he's close to signing a new five-year contract with the Culinary Union.

"We're 99 percent settled," Gaughan said. "For all practical purposes, we're done."

The Barbary Coast deal is expected to follow union agreements with two other Strip properties, the Riviera and Stratosphere.

Gaughan said he has agreed to accept the same economic terms as those in the other Strip contracts that guarantee union employees their largest increase ever in wages and benefits.

An agreement is expected to be signed before the union's July 1 strike deadline for 15 casinos still without contracts, Gaughan said.

The union, meanwhile, has scheduled three bargaining sessions in the next two weeks with a group of downtown hotels that has taken a hard line in the contract talks.

Meetings with seven downtown properties -- Binion's Horseshoe, Four Queens, Fitzgeralds, Union Plaza, Las Vegas Club, El Cortez and the Western -- and the Castaways have been set for June 20, 24 and 26.

At the same time the union plans to step up public pressure on the casinos.

It has scheduled three more downtown demonstrations in the next two weeks to draw attention to the slow-moving talks with the eight properties, which have said they can't afford the rich Strip contract.

Members of the Communications Workers of America, who will be in town for a convention at the Las Vegas Hilton next week, plan to participate in a march on Fremont Street on Tuesday.

Then on June 26, members of the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees, who will be holding their convention at Paris, expect to rally downtown on the Culinary Union's behalf.

Between those two demonstrations, Culinary Union members plan their own massive Fremont Street march on June 21.

The downtown casinos are preparing to give the union a counter offer that suggests switching union employees to less expensive company health insurance.

The union already has rejected that proposal, saying downtown employees deserve the same health plan as workers on the Strip. That plan, which is run by the union, guarantees free medical coverage for union members and their families.