Italian politician, labor leader crusade against the Venetian

Michele Vianello says he's amazed at how the desert city of Las Vegas has managed to recreate so many sights of the world.

But he says the Italian city of Venice, slowly built and rebuilt over 1,300 years, shouldn't be one of them. Vianello is the deputy mayor of Venice.

"Maybe it's a function of European arrogance to claim our city as our own, but to think that one person can recreate the city of Venice is the height of arrogance by Sheldon Adelson (owner of the Venetian resort)," Vianello said Wednesday through his translator, Rob Rovere of the Teamsters Union. "We don't think it's possible to recreate Venice at all."

Vianello, together with the leaders of three of Venice's hospitality workers unions, is in Las Vegas this week to voice his displeasure with Adelson and the Venetian. Vianello and the union officials are in town at the request -- and on the budget -- of the local Culinary Union, which has been engaged in a bitter feud with Adelson for the past several years.

At a Wednesday press conference at the Culinary Union's local headquarters, Vianello and Venice union officials said they're preparing to bring their political firepower in Europe against the hotel-casino. The union leaders in Las Vegas represent about 11,000 workers in Venice, or about 65 percent of that city's hospitality employees.

"I speak of the great relationship our union has with the tourist and ticketing agencies throughout Europe," said Luigino Boscaro, provincial secretary of UILTuCS, a trade union representing Venice's hotel workers. "We will make them understand what is happening here at the Venetian. We will encourage them to not encourage anyone to stay at the Venetian.

"These are the kind of things we will try to do with all of the resources at our disposal, because we believe all of the workers at the Venetian ... must have the right to participate in this form of liberty (unionization)."

Boscaro said the unions have already had one success in fighting the Venetian. In late August, he said his union managed to get celebrity chef Joachim Splichal removed from a Windstar Cruises trip to Venice, after the unions expressed their displeasure with Splichal's ties to the Venetian. Splichal operates the high-end French restaurant Pinot Brasserie in the hotel-casino.

The Venetian remained defiant Wednesday.

"The only words we can think of to describe what they're doing are 'lame, sad and laughable,' " said Andy Abboud, the Venetian's director of government relations. "This is one of the most lame and pathetic P.R. stunts the union has ever done.

"I would just be outraged if I was a union dues-paying member and they spent that money to bring this guy on vacation to talk about the Venetian."

He added that efforts by the Venice unions to block European visits to the Venetian "will only hurt our entire community."

The political battle between Venice officials and the Venetian began in April, when Venice Mayor Massimo Cacciari, at the request of Culinary officials, wrote a letter to then-Mayor Jan Jones expressing displeasure with the Venetian. In the letter, Cacciari called the project "the 'violation' of the image of Venice, its history and its tradition."

Vianello said he intended to repeat those concerns to Mayor Oscar Goodman during this week's visit.

"It is our intent to let the mayor know that this distortion of our city must stop," Vianello said.

But Abboud said that Cacciari and other Venice officials asked for a monetary contribution in exchange for their blessing on the hotel-casino, and hinted that their anti-Venetian campaign was triggered by the Venetian's refusal to concede to the demand. He said that the Venetian mayor admitted that the city requested money from the Venetian in La Nuova Venezia, a Venice daily newspaper.

"It was an exorbitant amount of money ... and they would say whatever we want," Abboud said. "We refused."

Vianello said he'd read about those allegations in the German press, and expressed fury at them. He said that Venice city officials never met with anyone from the Venetian.

"There is no truth to that at all," Vianello said. "The city of Venice does not function in that manner.

"If the international institutions of justice would permit it, we would sue Mr. Adelson. We have never met him."

Abboud also claimed that Vianello had ties to Italy's Communist Party.

"If he is a Communist, it's unfathomable that the union would have a Communist come to Las Vegas to speak for its due-paying members," Abboud said.

When asked about his political affiliations, Vianello said he was a member of the Democratic Left Party, "a very common party in European politics."

"We govern Venice in a very democratic fashion," he said.

During his visit, Vianello said he plans to meet with numerous Venetian employees. He'll be given a tour of Park Place Entertainment Corp.'s Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on Friday, and plans to participate in a Culinary protest in front of the Venetian Friday evening.

The Venetian says Vianello is becoming involved in a situation that doesn't concern him.

"This is completely irrelevant, because what the union doesn't want to talk about is that we have the best benefits on the Strip," Abboud said.

But Vianello believes Venice's entire culture is at stake.

"My assignment is to defend my city," Vianello said. "If Mr. Adelson was the mayor of Venice, he would not allow anyone to attack his city."

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