Sunday, Feb. 28, 1999 | 9:29 a.m.
BATTLE LINES are being drawn on the Strip Monday in a labor war everyone hoped would never take place.
The combatants -- the high-powered Culinary Union and billionaire businessman Sheldon Adelson -- have the resources to sustain what promises to be a long and messy conflict the likes of which Las Vegas has never seen.
And much to the dismay of tourism and casino industry officials, both sides appear to be digging in for the long haul.
The first skirmish gets under way at 5:30 p.m. Monday on the sidewalks of Adelson's $1.2 billion Venetian megaresort, which is gearing up to open without a union contract in mid-April.
Hundreds of Culinary members, led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a veteran of the civil rights movement, plan to demonstrate against what they believe are Adelson's anti-labor policies.
The politically connected union, which represents 45,000 casino industry workers, considers the sidewalks public property, which is crucial to its ability to carry out a protracted fight with the Venetian.
Adelson, who has refused to be "bullied" by the union, believes the sidewalks are private, and his top man in Las Vegas, Bill Weidner, has vowed to have the demonstrators arrested if they cross the line.
Monday's showdown could attract national attention, especially if Lewis ends up being cited or taken into custody by police. The union regards Lewis, one of Martin Luther King's closest advisers, as a genuine American hero.
The escalating war, meanwhile, could have more far-reaching ramifications than the fallout from the union's epic fight with the Frontier hotel-casino.
Just as in the Frontier strike, America's labor movement will be watching the battleground here. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who has called Las Vegas the hottest union city in the country, is expected to back the Culinary Union with unprecedented firepower.
John Wilhelm, the union's international president, considers Adelson dangerous to the well-being of the entire community.
"He's an ideologue first and a businessman second, and that's a fatal combination," Wilhelm says.
Adelson, he says, has let his hatred for the union spill over into the political arena, where he has worked to defeat elected officials supported by the union.
But Weidner insists the union, not Adelson, is the instigator of this war.
"They've driven us into a bunker," he says. "They're trying to force us to do something we don't want to do."
Weidner says the Venetian doesn't need to negotiate a Culinary contract because it's giving its workers a better wage and benefit package than the union's.
"This is going to be a wonderful building, and it's going to be a real asset to the tourism infrastructure," he says. "We intend to become good citizens of the community and continue to be involved in community activities and essentially going about running our business."
Wilhelm, however, believes Adelson's strident behavior threatens to undermine the cordial relationship between the Culinary Union and the casino industry all along the Strip. Last week, the Mandalay Bay, which opens on Tuesday, became the latest Strip megaresort to join the Culinary Union's family.
In recent years, the union has been one of the industry's biggest allies, as gambling has faced mounting scrutiny in Washington and across the country.
D. Taylor, the union's staff director, says it may become difficult for the union to defend the industry in the future while it's in hand-to-hand combat with one of its key players.
"This could be detrimental to the overall health of the industry during a time of uncertainty," Taylor says.
At the same time, the union's tough stance against the Venetian comes with risks, too. The new megaresort so far has been getting rave reviews from industry leaders who see it as a way to boost higher-end tourism in the next millennium. So what's good for Adelson is good for the entire industry.
Thus, there's potential for a backlash among casino operators against the union if it's perceived as being too overbearing in its demands.
That may be why one casino mogul with strong union ties, Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn, has tried to persuade Wilhelm and Adelson to make peace.
Wynn understands that all-out warfare on the Strip hurts everyone.
archive
