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Union Bosses Quiet as Strike Deadline Nears

LAS VEGAS -- Five days before union workers at 14 Las Vegas-area properties say they'll go on strike if they haven't reached new contract terms, union leaders have adopted a new strategy.

They're keeping quiet.

Culinary Local 226 and Bartender's Local 165 officials were eager to communicate their bargaining messages during early contract negotiations with Strip and downtown operators.

Union members would strike to keep their employer-funded health care benefits and to reduce housekeeper workloads, the bosses told TV and newspaper reporters.

But now that negotiations with the final 14 operators are just days away from the unions' self-imposed Monday strike deadline, Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor, the local's top official and one of its two lead negotiators, isn't returning media phone calls.

"Compromise is best accomplished in private," explained Bill Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The union wants to make some concessions, but they need to do it privately. Otherwise members will think they're being sold out."

Taylor's been widely quoted since negotiations began in earnest in May, but experts Tuesday said his about-face on public comment is a strategic move.

Industry insiders believe the union bosses are maneuvering to find a way to reach a deal with the remaining operators without new contracts.

Almost all Strip operators have agreed to five-year deals that would cost the properties $3.23 per hour worked by the pacts' final year, but lawyers for six downtown casinos and the Castaways have said their clients can't afford the deals.

Insiders believe union officials offered a deal to Boyd Gaming Corp. bosses Sunday, a deal they'd like the Main Street Station and Fremont operator to sell to the other holdout properties.

But they also believe union officials have spent so much time declaring that they won't accept a second-class contract that it's now difficult for them to accept any deals offering less than the Strip operators gave up without antagonizing the nearly 7,000 union members still without deals.

Taylor hasn't returned a spate of phone calls since Sunday's Boyd negotiating session. When asked why Taylor won't talk about the negotiations, Culinary political director Glen Arnodo said: "No comment."

Downtown casino lawyer Gregg Kamer, who represents Binion's Horseshoe, Four Queens, Western, El Cortez, Plaza and Las Vegas Club, said Taylor now isn't sure what to do.

"They got such a great deal on the Strip that they've given their downtown workers the unrealistic idea that everyone can afford the deal," Kamer said.

Insiders believe the union is struggling to find a compromise between what Strip operators paid and downtown operators can afford.

"They haven't publicly put out a number," Kamer said. "They're putting out trial balloons."

Taylor told the Review-Journal last week that he hoped Boyd Gaming Chairman Bill Boyd would help broker an agreement with other operators, and Boyd executives have said the company's brass stands ready to do just that.

But other than Boyd spokesman Rob Stillwell's assessment of `substantial progress' during Sunday's one-hour negotiating session with the union leaders, both Boyd bosses and the union leaders have kept quiet.

Kamer and Culinary lawyer Sal Gugino are scheduled to meet with union negotiators this afternoon at the Riviera, with another meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Union officials are slated to meet Boyd executives on Friday, only one day before the unions plan to begin pre-strike picketing at all properties without contracts.

Taylor said Friday that if he had to bet, he'd bet there would be a strike, but Kamer said Monday he'd bet against a work stoppage.

One day later, Kamer'd changed his tune, saying that internal union politics were preventing union brass from offering a deal his clients could afford.

"There may be a strike," Kamer said Tuesday. "D. Taylor has to learn how to be a diplomat and differentiate between the truly desperate and nearly desperate properties."

As many as 50 busloads of convention-going members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are expected to join Culinary and Bartender's members this afternoon for a 4 p.m. rally on Fremont Street, Arnodo said.

The union also plans today to begin distributing strike survival guides to all employees without new contracts. The pamphlets offer financial and other advice for striking workers.

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