Columnist Jeff German: Culinary reaching for Arnold’s star power

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

Culinary Union leaders acknowledge it's going to be a long shot to get Arnold Schwarzenegger to take the side of the Aladdin workers looking for a collective bargaining agreement.

"Maybe a miracle will happen," says Glen Arnodo, the union's political director.

And maybe porn king Larry Flynt will also out-poll Schwarzenegger in California's Oct. 7 recall election.

Arnodo says a small group of Aladdin workers -- a cook, two food servers, a housekeeper and a porter, all of whom are immigrants like Schwarzenegger -- will travel to Santa Monica on Wednesday to seek Schwarzenegger's help during a demonstration outside the Hollywood star's production company.

Schwarzenegger is being singled out because of his ties to Planet Hollywood, which is resisting the union's organizing campaign as it prepares to take over the bankrupt Aladdin.

The "Terminator" sold his interests in the international restaurant chain in 2000, but still has an agreement, like 30 other stars, to let the company use his name in association with Planet Hollywood around the world.

"With one phone call, he can probably get Planet Hollywood to end this war at the Aladdin," Arnodo says without breaking into a laugh. "Schwarzenegger is the biggest celebrity they've got."

Which brings us to the real reason why the Culinary Union is trying to drag Schwarzenegger into the fray.

It's not to see whether the conservative has a bleeding heart, but rather to try to latch onto the storm of publicity surrounding his Republican candidacy in the California recall election and attract national attention to the Planet Hollywood fight.

It is nothing but a classic union publicity stunt aimed at pressuring Planet Hollywood CEO Robert Earl to see things the union's way at the Aladdin.

The union hasn't even made a solid effort to reach Schwarzenegger before traveling to California this week because it probably already knows that it's not going to get any help from him.

The California Labor Federation, the largest labor organization in the state with some 2 million members, has endorsed Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in the race. Even the Culinary's sister hotel workers union in California is backing Bustamante.

On top of that, Schwarzenegger has been critical of California's fast-growing casino industry, primarily run by Indian tribes, for not paying its fair share of taxes to the state's broken economy.

In Nevada, you'll recall, the Culinary Union aligned itself with the casino industry's ill-fated push to spread the state's tax burden to other businesses.

So Schwarzenegger isn't even a natural political ally of the Culinary Union.

But he's a perfect mark to gain national exposure in the union's fight with Planet Hollywood -- if the media in Hollywood takes the bait.