Adelson attacks Culinary

      Venetian developer Sheldon Adelson continued his months-long feud with Las Vegas union organizers Tuesday, charging that leaders of Culinary Local 226 are working for their own benefit at the expense of Strip workers.
      "Gone are the days when union bosses were the protectors of working-class Americans," he said. "Instead, they have become just another special interest working to line their own pockets and build their own political future."
      Adelson's comments were delivered to an estimated crowd of 800 gaming executives and institutional investors during a luncheon session of the American Gaming & Lodging Summit at the Las Vegas Hilton.
      The bulk of the 24-page speech offered an upbeat account of the Venetian project, which recently received funding for its $1.4 billion first phase.
      "Our project dispels yesterday's assumptions and creates a new Las Vegas that will woo millions of new visitors who might normally head for other resort destination cities, such as Palm Springs, San Francisco or Scottsdale," Adelson said.
      The 3,036-suite first phase will be tied to Adelson's neighboring Sands Expo & Convention Center, and will offer upscale retail shops and restaurants in a Venice-themed setting.
      "The Venetian and Las Vegas' future are synonymous," Adelson said. "The Venetian will be a destination city within a destination city."
      The son of a Boston cabby, Adelson has been embroiled in a war of words with union leaders since he imploded the unionized 44-year-old Sands hotel in June 1996 to replace it with the $2 billion Venetian.
      Adelson has consistently refused to promise that the Sands' replacement staff will be unionized, and has said he will allow Venetian workers to hold a National Labor Relations Board-mandated election to determine whether they will join the union.
      "In the last few months, by attacking the future vision of Las Vegas represented by The Venetian, we have seen how the narrow political agenda of the Culinary union bosses has threatened the free spirit that has made Nevada one of the leading job-producing states in the country," he said.
      A union organizer who did not attend the luncheon but heard an account of Adelson's speech declined to respond at length.
      "It's silly to have a war of words. That doesn't serve a purpose," said Glen Arnodo, the Culinary union's political action director. "We look at what people do, and one of the things he did is throw the Sands workers out on the street."
      Organizers from Culinary Local 226 have seized upon a county-mandated study of traffic patterns near the project to demonstrate that The Venetian would have a negative effect on the area dominated by the Las Vegas Boulevard-Sands Avenue intersection.
      The study is nearing completion and awaits approval by Clark County officials. Without it, the company might not be given the county's OK to operate the resort -- even if it is fully built.
      Earlier this year, Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Inc. filed suit, accusing the Culinary union of trying to stop the company from building the resort.
      The company accused the union of writing a letter in June to Goldman, Sachs & Co., a New York investment banking firm that joined in underwriting a $523 million bond offering for the project's first phase.
      "By pursuing their scorched earth tactics they force their own dues-driven agenda and make Las Vegas pay the price," Adelson said Tuesday. "And for what?
      "Solely to attempt to intimidate employers like me into signing contracts for workers I haven't hired yet, to stop me from trying to give my future employees a chance to choose whether they want union representation, and stop me from attracting like-minded, brand-name restaurateurs who want to give their employees that same freedom to choose."