More than 1,500 union workers, their families and community
allies rallied, sang and marched down Las Vegas' famed strip January 31 to escort the
first shift of Frontier Hotel employees back to work, after their six-and-a-half-year
strike. Five hundred fifty workers--Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, Teamsters,
Operating Engineers and Carpenters--struck the hotel in 1991 when management eliminated
pension plans, slashed wages, cut health benefits and gutted job security protections. Not
one worker crossed the 24-hour-a-day picket line. When the hotel was sold, the new owner
agreed to a contract with improvements in each of the disputed areas. "I think
anybody who stays out six-and-a-half years has a lot of intestinal fortitude," said
new owner Phillip Ruffin. "We think these people will make good employees [who] can
bring the hotel back to what it once was." Work in Progress February 3, 1998.
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