'Steeling' away to Las Vegas
The United Steelworkers of America, which is about as "Pittsburgh" as you can get, cares more about Las Vegas' unionized hotel workers than those in its hometown.
For its convention in 2005, the USW could have chosen the brand spankin' new David L. Lawrence Convention Center, built with the help of 24 local trade unions. It also could have chosen to use the region's 2,000 hotel rooms serviced by union members.
However, the union that has defined the Pittsburgh labor movement is likely to hold its party in a right-to-work state. Employees in those states are not forced to join unions in closed shops as they are in Pennsylvania.
Andrew Carnegie must be smiling somewhere.
"We would like to hold it in Pittsburgh, but our delegates wanted a city where they can be in union hotels," said Jim English, secretary-treasurer of the USW. "Las Vegas is the city with the largest supply of union hotels."
Sixty-six percent in the Las Vegas market are unionized, according to Chris Bohner, research director of the Culinary Workers Union there.
"That Nevada is a right-to-work state certainly was a factor we take into consideration," English said.
But it was not much of a factor since he said there is a 90 percent to 95 percent chance that the union soon will say "Viva Las Vegas!" Like it did when it held its 2002 convention there.
The so-called problem Pittsburgh has is its 2,000 rooms in unionized hotels. The USW wants 2,500, even if those rooms are three time zones away from its international headquarters at Five Gateway Center.
"I do not know how we would decide who to put in nonunion hotels," English said. "Those who would be put there would be unhappy." So instead, the USW will make every hotel employee here unhappy, as well as others who could have profited from this.
Apparently Las Vegas has many steel mills.
The AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization for American unions, also is unhappy with right-to-work states.
"We call it 'right to work for less,'" said spokeswoman Lane Windham. "It means that in those places, it is harder for workers to get better wages, benefits and have a voice on the job."
Well, maybe the USW conventioneers will be good tippers.
This is how our convention center describes itself on its Web page: "It's been called stunning. A landmark of world-class design. A public promenade for the 21st Century. ... a state-of-the-art facility that reinvents the concept of how a show integrates with its surroundings." Yet it cannot even attract the USW, all of 30 seconds away via the 10th Street Bypass.
Think of the money that could have poured into the region. Pittsburgh restaurants, taxis, nightclubs, malls, sporting events -- all could have made something from our blue-collar neighbors. But now that steelworker money will be blown in a right-to-work state.
The next time USW members ask you to support their picketing, boycotts, the Stand Up for Steel campaign, tariffs and other restrictions on imported steel, union-endorsed candidates -- or ask you to donate to any cause -- ask them if they had a real good time at their Nevada conventions.
Then tell them to fly back to Las Vegas and see how many people there care about the American steel industry or the USW, assuming they even will know what "USW" stands for. Assuming it stands for anything these days.
