The Biggest Winners in Las Vegas
My challenge to you in 1998 is to recommit
yourself to our great cause we call AFSCME.
By Gerald W. McEntee
It goes without saying that there are more losers than winners when it comes to the casinos in Las Vegas.
But in one of the biggest gambles that city has seen in years, the roles were reversed. This time there were 550 winners and three losers.
For more than six years, 550 Frontier Hotel and Casino workers have been on strike. They went out on strike because the owners of the ca-sino, Margaret Elardi and her two sons, Tom and John, set out to bust the union by cutting health benefits and pension plans, setting wages far below other union hotels and ignoring basic grievance procedures.
On Sept. 21, 1991, members of Culinary Workers Local 226/Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) went out on strike. On that same day, the Elardi family stated, "If the union wants to start a war in the state of Nevada, the Elardis will make them wish they never started it."
As Mark Twain once said, "the gambler who bluffs the loudest, folds first." And he was certainly right in this case.
For 2,325 days and nights, our sisters and brothers in Las Vegas walked the line in front of the Frontier, carrying on their lives as best they could. During this time, 107 children were born to striking families. Unfortun-ately, 17 strikers passed away, never to see the final victory.
Throughout the entire strike, support for the strikers came from far and wide.
Bill Bennett, owner of the Sahara, fed the strikers three meals a day for the duration of the strike at a cost of over $1.5 million. Why? Because he and other casino owners knew that the Elardis were wrong.
During our International Convention in Las Vegas in the summer of 1992, some of you will remember that AFSCME showed its support by staging the largest single rally held during the strike.
But instead of being proud of what we did for the Frontier strikers, we should be grateful for what they have given us.
The solidarity shown on the frontlines of the Frontier has given new life to not only AFSCME, but the entire labor movement.
When the Frontier strike started, the labor movement looked very different. It was unsure of itself, it was tired and it had forgotten its priorities. But we changed all that — partly because there were new sparks of life in the labor movement all across this country. One of those sparks was a dedicated group of people in an isolated corner of Nevada who were standing up for what is right, despite the costs and risks.
The labor movement that had grown cold and gray was starting to be warmed by the red-hot solidarity of the Frontier strikers.
But their solidarity did more than force the Elardis out and win workers a new contract. It made me, and I am sure countless others, realize that in a world where heroes are hard to come by, there have been 550 or so heroes outside of the Frontier for the past 6½ years.
They are heroes who stood up for what is right. Heroes who said to the Elardi family: "We will not be pushed around. We will not sit back while you take away what is right-fully ours. We will not give up our way of life. And we will not quit."
There are lessons for each of us to learn from the Frontier strike. In the spirit of those strikers, my challenge to you in 1998 is to recommit yourself to our great cause we call AFSCME because the challenges we face continue to grow and the goals we strive to reach are even higher.
If we all work together, we can defeat the Elardis of the world, whether they are in executive suites or in statehouses. If we all work together, we will continue to grow and protect the way of life we cherish.
For the past 6½ years, the Elardis gambled against the solidarity of labor. But they forgot the one absolute rule of Las Vegas: The house always wins. And once again, the house has won, but this time it was the House of Labor.
