2 Sinatras Spark Activity in Musicians’ Strike : Labor: Father and son entertainers take unorthodox and sometimes contradictory steps to help end Las Vegas walkout. The hotels and union members trade views after two months of acrimonious silence.

Traditional bargaining has failed to end the 6-month-old musicians’ strike against five major hotel-casinos over the issue of taped music, so a father-son combo has weighed in.

It’s a heavy duo. The father is Frank Sinatra. The son is Frank Sinatra Jr.

Due in part to the unorthodox and sometimes contradictory efforts of the two entertainers, the hotels and musicians last week informally traded views after two months of acrimonious silence.

If the stalemate is broken, some credit will likely go to the Sinatras.

During a period of five days in late November, Frank Sinatra first broke with the Musicians Union by saying he would perform at the struck Bally’s hotel-casino, then changed his mind and announced he wouldn’t. That was a powerful emotional boost for the musicians, whose cause would probably have faded from public view if numerous stars hadn’t refused to cross picket lines.

During that same week, Frank Sinatra Jr., who also entertains in Las Vegas and is musical director of his father’s band, was working as a self-appointed intermediary, carrying a proposed settlement from Bally’s striking musicians to hotel officials in an attempt to negotiate a separate agreement.

The son’s strategy failed, but it highlighted how desperately big-name entertainers want to settle the strike.

The strike, which has entered its seventh month, involves only 45 musicians. However, it has become a metaphor for contemporary labor conflict--new technology versus old job-security work rules, corporate muscle versus weakened unions, and the age-old battle between money and art.

Previous contracts between the hotels and the union had included job-security provisions limiting the use of taped music and paying house musicians on some occasions when they were displaced by a visiting orchestra. But as the old contract neared expiration in June the hotels--saying they were losing millions of dollars on entertainment--demanded the elimination of the restrictions. Some house musicians struck, others were later fired.

Now, two months after rejecting a settlement offer that the hotels characterized as their last word, officials of Musicians Union Local 369 are preparing a compromise that would grant the hotels’ wish to replace many musicians at “production shows” like the “Folies Bergere” with taped music. In exchange, the union is asking for greater severance payments than the hotels had previously proposed.

In a comment typifying the hardball nature of the strike, Stan Goodman, an attorney representing the hotels, said last week that the hotels’ last offer is now “off the table” and that the hotels will probably offer less severance money--not more--if negotiations resume.

The lingering dispute has become a civic embarrassment to Las Vegas, which in recent weeks has attempted to focus world attention on the opening of the first new Strip hotel in more than a decade, the 3,000-room Mirage.

The presence of small knots of Musicians Union pickets in front of the Tropicana, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas Hilton, Flamingo Hilton and Bally’s symbolizes to some observers how the corporate hand has replaced Las Vegas’ old, ribald image as a place where hotels spent liberally on extras like entertainment and low-cost meals to attract gamblers.

The Musicians Union in past months had vowed to stay on strike until the hotels agreed to limit taped music and to rehire all strikers. The hotels, meanwhile, said the musicians were no longer needed and vowed to end all work rules and limits, branding them as “featherbedding.” Now the union appears to be retrenching, saying in effect that it is willing to settle for much of what the hotels offered two months ago: keeping four musicians on half-time salary in each “celebrity” performance room and keeping four more on full-time salary in “production” rooms, with severances to be paid to those laid off.

“We have to be realistic enough to know things aren’t going to be the way they used to be,” said union spokeswoman Elizabeth Smith. “Hopefully the musicians who get severances will have enough to make a good start.”

The union’s spirits were raised in November with a four-hour benefit by two dozen entertainers that drew 1,800 people and raised $30,000 for the strike fund.

The next day, however, spirits plummeted when Sinatra--who had canceled dates at Bally’s in October because of the strike--announced that he would go back to perform. It was “time for everybody to get back to work,” he said through his publicist.

Two days later--with only 10 days left before Sinatra was to begin performing at Bally’s--Frank Sinatra Jr. met with the striking Bally’s musicians and then went to Bally’s officials suggesting they cut a separate deal.

Five days after that, Frank Sinatra reversed himself again. This time he said he was canceling his weeklong Bally’s engagement because, “I am informed that a settlement of the strike is possible. If such is the case, I do not want to jeopardize these conversations.”

Angry Bally’s officials, caught off guard by Sinatra’s reversal, denied that any settlement conversations had occurred. They said that on the advice of their lawyers they had rejected Frank Sinatra Jr.’s offer out of hand.

The elder Sinatra’s publicist said Frank Sinatra Jr. acted independently. The son, speaking through his manager, declined comment.

As word circulated last week that the union was about to make an offer to the hotels, striking musicians prepared themselves. They recognize that they hold few chips.

While half a dozen unions have shifted Las Vegas conventions from struck hotels to other facilities, there has been little direct economic effect. The hotels have hired strikebreaking musicians or shifted to tape. The shows go on.

Had Sinatra performed this last week, “Everybody else would have crossed,” said Ralph Petillo, publisher of Casino News, referring to previous pro-strike cancellations this fall by many major performers--Rodney Dangerfield, Diana Ross, Burt Bacharach, Sammy Davis Jr. and Willie Nelson.

The most adversity facing the five hotels is the federal law that bans employers from hiring non-immigrant foreigners--like Julio Iglesias, whose scheduled performance at Caesars Palace last month had to be scratched--during a strike.