Vegas workers gamble big - and win!

By Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the May 23, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Every gambler knows the iron-clad rule of this flamboyant, neon-lit casino town: "The house always wins."

No one knows it better than the thousands of men and women who toil in the gaming industry. Some even call Las Vegas "Lost Wages," a place where many a soul has lost his shirt to enrich the bottom line of the casino owners.

But the workers of many races and nationalities who cook the meals, wash the dishes, change the sheets and deal the cards have found a way to tilt the odds more in their favor - join the union!

It is a simple idea painted on the cinder-block facade of Culinary Workers Local 226: "In solidarity, we will win." Jim Arnold, chief executive officer and secretary-treasurer of Local 226, an affiliate of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE), recently took an hour from his frenetic schedule to tell the People's Weekly World that union solidarity has sunk deep roots in this desert city.

"The Frontier Hotel strikers walked their picket lines for six and a half years and not one of them crossed the picket line," Arnold said. "What these courageous workers did in winning that strike not only benefited workers in Las Vegas, it benefited the labor movement all across this country."

The 550 Frontier Hotel workers walked out on strike Sept. 21, 1991, protesting the wage and benefit cuts, the elimination of health and pension benefits imposed by the new owners, the Elardi family.

They eliminated job security and seniority rights and harassed, suspended and fired union activists. The Elardis were clearly intent on smashing the union, Arnold said.

The Frontier management's policy was the first real test since a disastrous defeat in 1984 of a citywide strike against all the casinos that stretch along Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the "Strip."

Arnold blamed poor leadership for that defeat. "Basically, the leadership did not prepare the membership for that strike," he said. "And at a certain point, they simply walked away from the strikers. There was a lot of bitterness. Members lost hope. We lost seven hotels and our membership went down to 16,000," he said.

Arnold was born in Newark, Arkansas. His family moved to Nevada when he was a child. His father was a leading Nevada union organizer for 30 years. Jim followed in his father's footsteps, joining the Culinary Workers straight out of Rancho High in 1961.

He worked as a laundry valet and bellhop at the Sands Hotel and later at Caesar's Palace. He also worked for a time as an operating engineer at the Nevada Test Site before returning to the hotel industry.

Through it all, he was a staunch trade unionist. He became a shop steward and later a business representative of Local 226. In 1987 he was elected to head the Local with a promise that striking workers would never again be left to fight alone. He immediately launched an energetic drive to organize the unorganized.

"We started getting our members involved, becoming part of the union, serving on the negotiating team and helping make decisions," he said.

Now, he said, Local 226 has 40,000 members, making it one of the largest and fastest growing union locals in the nation. "We devote 50 percent of our budget to organizing the unorganized," he said proudly, twenty percent higher than the guideline laid down by the new AFL-CIO leadership.

So when the Elardi family declared war on Frontier workers, they were prepared to defend themselves. The unions that joined in the walkout included Local 226 and a sister Culinary Workers Local 165, Teamsters Local 995, Carpenters Local 1780, and Operating Engineers Local 501.

Non-striking members of Local 226 and Local 165 employed at other hotels agreed to double their union dues so that the union could provide $200 a week in strike benefits, Arnold said.

The Frontier workers maintained their picket lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the duration of the 78-month-long strike. There were demonstrations, including a march across the desert from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in January 1992. Then, 11 months later, marching under the banner "Desert Solidarity," more than 20,000 unionists and their supporters shut down the Strip on a busy Saturday night.

"We had thousands of workers coming from all across the country to walk on our picket lines," Arnold said. "The labor movement collected money and tons of food and sent it to help sustain our strikers. It was amazing."

Arnold paid special tribute to HERE General President Edward Hanley and HERE Secretary-Treasurer John Wilhelm, who came repeatedly to Las Vegas and mustered the entire HERE membership in solidarity with the Frontier strikers. National support grew even stronger when the AFL-CIO elected a new leadership headed by President John Sweeney, Executive Vice President Linda Chavez Thompson, and Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who also joined the strikers' picket lines and spoke to strike rallies.

Finally Elardi threw in the towel, selling the Frontier Hotel to Phil Ruffin, who quickly reached a settlement that basically met all the demands of the strikers. On February 1, 1998, at a minute past midnight, Ruffin, with Trumka, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Nevada Gov. Robert Miller and hundreds of workers looking on, cut a red ribbon to reopen the "new" Frontier as a union house.

What does he think is the main lesson from such a prolonged battle? "We didn't walk away from these workers. The labor movement stood with them. It adds to our credibility," he said. "We are getting a lot of praise for what we are doing here. And it is true. Nevada is a right-to-work (for less) state. But when I hear all this praise I keep thinking: we have a long way to go."

This year wage and benefit contracts at the 39 union hotels in the city are up for renegotiation. "So far, we have agreements at 10. We have 29 yet to go," Arnold said. "The contracts were up last June. We had to get MGM Grand and Frontier settled before we could go on to the rest."

Negotiating is a nightmare, he said, because it is done hotel-by-hotel rather than citywide. Furthermore, many hotels that are not located on the Strip are still non-union and it is a struggle to create a "level playing field" in such a crazy quilt of union and non-union hotels.

In their efforts to convince workers to join the union, he said, Local 226 can point with pride to higher wages and a health plan that is the best in the industry. They have far better job security, a grievance procedure, vacations and pensions, he added.

"Street heat" is one of their main tactics for promoting the union, increasing its visibility and defending the workers' interests. Just before we arrived in Las Vegas, hotel workers staged a protest rally against the IRS for imposing a tax on the traditional free meal that hotel and restaurant workers receive during each shift. "We estimate this tax, imposed in the name of the 'Three Martini Lunch' tax, will cost our members about $300 each year," said Arnold. "This tax will hit hotel and restaurant workers all across the country. This was one of a series of protest rallies against this unfair tax."

The hotel and gaming industry in Las Vegas is booming with ever more elaborate theme-park style constructions, such as the Luxor with its ancient Egyptian theme. In 1999, a replica of Paris is scheduled to open, complete with a half-scale model of the Eiffel Tower. One of the newest is the New York, New York Hotel and Casino, a mini-Manhattan with an Empire State Building replica and a mock-up of the Statue of Liberty looming overhead.

"We blocked off the strip with 10,000 workers and set up a stage in front of the Statue of Liberty to protest their subcontracting all the restaurants to non-union outfits," Arnold said. The hotel and casino workers are protected by a union contract "but the restaurant workers, employed by these subcontractor restaurants, are working under slave conditions paid the minimum wage with no benefits. It's a disgrace," he said.

Casino construction has taken on a crazed intensity. Multi-millionaire Sheldon Adelson, former owner of the Comdex computer show, is building a miniature version of Venice called the "Venetian" with a 6,000 room hotel at a cost of $2.4 billion. Arnold said there is already a glut of hotel rooms and a lack of transportation to bring people in. The interstate from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, he said, is a continuous traffic jam. The AFL-CIO has picketed the Venetian construction site because Adelson is threatening to employ non-union workers in the gigantic complex.

Walk a few blocks either way from the gaudy casinos on the Strip and you are into the neighborhoods where these workers live, modest one-story, two-bedroom bungalows. Many neighborhoods have no streetlights. The work force is well integrated, with thousands of Mexican Americans and large numbers of African American, Native American Indian and white workers. There is also plenty of poverty and unemployment amid the glitter, glamour and free-flowing cash. At least $19 billion each year flows into the coffers of these fabulously profitable casinos.

Arnold said the drive to organize is not limited to the hotel and casino workers. There is also a strong drive by the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department to organize all the construction sites in the Las Vegas area.

Organized labor in Nevada is a potent force in electoral politics. Republican State Sen. Sue Lowden, a bitterly anti-union casino owner, was defeated because of a concerted drive by the labor movement, Arnold said.

Now the labor movement in Nevada is working to defeat a ballot initiative modeled on California's Prop. 226 that would require unions to get written permission from each union member before any union funds are used for political activities.

Arnold charged that it is nothing less than a drive to hamstring the labor movement, revenge for the AFL-CIO's highly effective political action program in recent elections.

"They call it the 'Paycheck Protection Act.' These right-wingers always come up with tricky language like 'right-to-work' to conceal their anti-worker legislation," Arnold said. "Our version here in Nevada is the worst of all. We are working hard to defeat it. We think we can win."