Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The AFL-CIO was to announce a campaign today to focus national attention on the bitter Frontier hotel-casino strike, the nation's longest.
The campaign was to be disclosed at the AFL-CIO's annual winter meeting in Los Angeles following a presentation on the 5 1/2-year-old strike by the Culinary Union.
A bus carrying 50 Frontier strikers planned to make the trek to Los Angeles to participate in the presentation, which will include a 16-minute videotape showing the human side of the strikers during the epic labor battle.
Last week, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in Las Vegas that his executive council, which includes the nation's top labor bosses, would be considering several options today to heighten awareness of the Frontier strike.
Sweeney called the Frontier "one of the biggest corporate criminals" in American history.
A recent series of SUN reports on alleged spying and dirty tricks against the strikers is being credited with stirring up national interest in the strike.
The Washington Post picked up on the story earlier this month.
In recent weeks, the FBI and State Gaming Control Board have launched separate investigations into the allegations.
Sweeney has pledged to put the full weight of his 13-million-member organization into pressuring authorities to end the strike.
Part of that effort, he said, would involve persuading the Control Board to revoke the Frontier's gaming license.
"I think we have to urge those who have some say over the regulatory process to look at this a lot more ambitiously," Sweeney said.
Frontier General Manager Tom Elardi has denied wrongdoing, but he has refused to address the majority of the recent allegations of wrongdoing leveled by Frontier whistleblowers.
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