Unions: Friend or Foe?: Big City Grief, Small Town Relief

Vanessa VanderZanden -- Tradeshow Week, 6/14/2004

Conventional wisdom is that unions exist to guarantee a fair wage and a fair work environment for useful workers. Show managers would agree that they want a satisfied work crew, but most would say they'd think twice about moving their tradeshow to a venue in a labor-friendly state, particularly if conditions at a venue in a right-to-work state are anywhere close to comparable.

Yet, there are unions and then there are unions.

Work crews vary drastically from one day to the next, never mind from one venue to the next. Looking at labor practices in Chicago and St. Louis, convention cities separated by just a few hundred miles, demonstrates that the differences can oftentimes be extreme. And, while these labor differences alone may not be enough to drive show managers south for their future exhibitions, they at least reflect the vast face of labor and prove that there are more options out there than simply union vs. non-union facilities.

Matters came to a crescendo at McCormick Place recently after the Chicago Sun-Times ran a detailed account of the criminal records and questionable backgrounds of current and former members of the Machinery Movers, Riggers and Machinery Erectors Union Local 136.

The story was preceded by the indictment of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority CEO and his assistant for allegedly fixing construction bids for the upcoming McCormick Place expansion.

As a consequence, Leticia Peralta Davis, the new CEO of the MPEA, which operates McCormick Place, called for a summit meeting the first week in June. Besides MPEA officials, unions, contractors, hospitality industry representatives and customers who had booked events at McCormick Place, the summit included Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"We are not going to allow anyone here to cling unnecessarily to an outdated way of doing business," Davis said following the meeting. "The goal of this meeting, and the long-term process that will follow, is to take steps that will take the form of real, quantifiable savings passed on to our customers."

Still, Barbara Voss, president of VossWorks and show director for The Society of the Plastics Industry's NPE, The World's Plastics Showcase, said seeing will be believing. Voss said the Sun-Times article recounting McCormick Place union workers' alleged mob links didn't surprise her or her exhibitors.

Voss said her worst experience at McCormick Place was last year, when NPE's first straight-time move-out day, Friday, June 27, fell just three days before Local 136's union contract was set to expire.

"It was awful," Voss said. Exhibitors were intimidated by union workers into paying expensive overtime charges Friday night and Saturday because they were told to worry if they weren't out of the building before a strike began on June 30. Frustrated and angered by the situation, Voss said many of the largest exhibitors have vowed to buy less space and bring much smaller booths to the next show in 2006.

"Is that the perception Chicago wants?" Voss asked.

Chicago workers do have strong personalities compared with other union cities, said Jason Chudnofsky, CEO of Next Step Media. While he's aware of the Chicago MPEA's troubles, he noted that they do not represent Chicago as a whole. Yet, he warned, "There are a lot of choices out there and if they don't get their act together they may lose out." He suggested that by looking at the way some privately run convention centers operate, McCormick Place managers could fix problems before more drastic action is taken.

Tradeshow consultant Candy Adams said McCormick Place has a tough contract. "You'll get the most number of people working in your exhibit." For instance, if you order a forklift driver, you'll also get a spotter and a supervisor, and still have to wait for an electrician to show up.

But she said it's also par for the course at convention centers that use union labor. "Chicago's not the worst, it's just typical," she said.

It may be no Big Apple or Windy City, but the folks in St. Louis think they've got something just as special: a union town that pays attention to its visitors' needs. At a time when labor costs elsewhere continue to skyrocket, the small-fry Missouri business hub has taken it down a notch, handing over more control to exhibitors and improving its reputation in the process.

Management at the 502,000 square foot America's Center/Cervantes Convention Center in St. Louis recently modified its labor rules so that exhibitors can assemble and tear down booths as large as 300 net square feet, as long as they don't use power tools. In addition, they can drive their personal vehicles to a designated door at the convention center and use a pushcart to load or unload their booth materials. Finally, they can even pack and unpack their own computers.

"It will change and enhance the perception of St. Louis for meeting planners," predicted Steve Stickford, senior vice president of sales at the America's Center.

Granted, few past visitors to the center had complaints, but for show managers accustomed to doing business in right-to-work states, "dealing with labor can be unfamiliar territory. While effective, it can be more costly than using the crew that works in the booth."

Leslie Zeck, manager of events and conferences for the American Red Cross, echoed this sentiment. "We had heard a lot of realistic grumbling about the high cost of labor," Zeck said. Yet, in St. Louis "the labor charges were not what we had anticipated. We were actually several thousands of dollars under budget."

Her 60-booth American Red Cross Natl. Convention ran smoothly May 21–23 in the first St. Louis show to be affected by the new labor rules. With a tradeshow covering 25,000 net sq. ft. of floorspace, the 3,000-delegate convention went off without a hitch, Zeck said. "We kept hearing from vendors, 'Be careful with your labor,' but if we needed something, it got done."

That was partly due to the efforts of facility manager Melanie Donnelly, who has worked in almost every capacity since the center opened 27 years ago. Last year, she added labor relations manager to her job description. Donnelly begins calling show managers a year before they're scheduled to come to St. Louis, in some cases immediately after their previous year's show has ended.

"My role is to establish a roadmap," Donnelly said. "Every building is different." She helps show organizers understand unions' various responsibilities and meets with union business agents to determine what concessions they're willing to make to guarantee return business. "Our unions understand that a part of the pie is better than no pie at all," Donnelly said.

According to Frank Condelliri, business agent for Decorator's Local 39 which handles booth set-up and tear-down in the America's Center, many of the new rules mirror the way his union had been running things unofficially over the past couple years anyhow. He admits that creating a list of new practices took some discussion, but "we're very proactive and think that it'll put us on the radar screen."

He has dreams of growing his crew of 100 full- and 100 part-time skilled workers by another 100 over the next two years. "We're very skilled and friendly," Condelliri stressed. "St. Louis is a unique place, so I hope people will check it out."