Labor Picture: Unions Gear Up for Boom

By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 5/16/2005

Las Vegas labor unions are expanding and educating their workforces, both to keep up with the continued growth of the No. 1 convention and exhibition destination, and to meet the expectations of general service contractors, show managers and exhibiting companies.

Without a doubt, these are good times for unions in Las Vegas — but they may have their work cut out for them as they look to the future. In addition to handling the 38 shows already listed on the latest Tradeshow Week 200 and hundreds of smaller events, union members will eventually have to service events at all the new and expanded facilities currently under construction in the city (see Future Venues, p. 34).

According to its leaders, Teamsters Local 631 is growing slowly but surely, while being careful not to let every Tom, Dick and Harry onto Las Vegas showfloors.

Local 631, the exhibition industry's most prominent union, was looking ahead in 2001 when it introduced an apprenticeship program that provides workers with a "general knowledge of everything" on the showfloor, from I&D to forklift operations to decorating, said Milan Dobrijevich, one of the union's two business agents for the convention craft.

"It was the answer to the market that we needed," he said.

The program, a 2,000-hour probationary period with a lower hourly rate, includes 288 mandatory classroom hours, some of which can be applied toward college credit. This led to the union adding 150 new journeymen in February, and it will welcome another 150 in September to its current convention workforce of up to 3,600 workers. There are also a number of ongoing education programs held for current members.

Dobrijevich said that is why "the quality of labor is drastically improving" in Las Vegas. "I'll put them up against anybody in the country," he added.

Meanwhile, general service contractors are doing more than crossing their fingers that the unions can deliver the quantity and quality of workers they need in the future — they're offering their own tradeshow training, in addition to assisting local unions in formulating apprenticeship program content.

"The (Teamsters) apprenticeship program is very important to us," said Jim Ness, general manager of Freeman's Las Vegas division, which in 2004 paid Teamsters Local 631 workers for nearly 1.1 million hours of work. "We're seeing a more qualified, more interested worker."

Keeping the labor workforce in line with the city's growing tradeshow business is "our biggest battle," Ness added. "I would like to think that, in five years ... maybe that demand and supply will equal out."

Ray Pekowski, president and CEO of The Expo Group, said "In the short term, it's going to be very challenging" for unions to keep up with the tradeshow industry's growth. "It's challenging now, when there's a multitude of shows going on."

To alleviate this expanding need for skilled labor, Pekowski suggested Las Vegas take a page from other cities' playbooks and allow nonunion workers to perform tasks that don't require as much skill or training as others.

"It doesn't take a skilled labor worker to deliver a wastebasket. At the same time, that work is claimed by the union," he said. Making this change is "not something that's going to take the work away."

Still, Anne Hanson, executive vice president of human resources and labor relations for GES Exposition Services, said she is looking forward to more "increased emphasis on (union) training. There's a lot more understanding with the union leadership about the importance of customer service."

Dobrijevich agreed and said he is committed to providing exhibitors with quality service, even if it takes a while. "We have to grow slowly," he said of his union.

Teamsters Local 631 could add substantially more than its planned 300 workers a year. More than 600 people recently applied for the 150 semiannual apprenticeship program openings. However, Dobrijevich said, keeping the workforce proficient, and not just big, is important.

"We want to try to grow as fast as possible without destroying the qualified workforce. We don't want to open the door to go back to the old days (without an apprenticeship)," he said. "It's unfeasible to maintain a 6,000-person (convention) workforce, because they're not going to work every day."

To temporarily supplement its convention workforce, Local 631 opened up an extra board list (a roster that often includes Local 631 Teamsters who don't typically work in the tradeshow industry and Teamsters from other locals). Plus, they're getting help from colleagues at other unions.

Under current circumstances, the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 720, whose 1,890 members have other kinds of jobs at Las Vegas venues, supplies a backup labor force to the Teamsters when needed. It too is preparing for what it expects to be an era of more, and bigger, tradeshows.

"We're growing on a daily basis," said Jeff Colman, business representative for the IATSE local, whose members occupy 300 full-time jobs on the Strip alone. "We have been able to keep up with (the growth) with a steady recruitment."

The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 is also taking steps to grow its workforce. Last year the union opened a new 11,000 sq. ft. kitchen inside its 2-year-old Culinary Training Academy, and now it is starting an apprenticeship program and researching further growth opportunities, said D. Taylor, the local's secretary-treasurer. The 60,000-member group hopes to double its assembly line of newly trained members to 5,000 per year.

Forty-story condominium high-rises, the colossal World Market Center and the new $2.7 billion, 2,700-room Wynn Las Vegas are a handful of the new projects creating opportunities for the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, which is juggling the city's physical growth with the tradeshow industry's developments.

The council, an affiliate of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and ancillary to the Teamsters, has a membership base of 8,000. However, 2,000 apprentices will begin training programs in the next 18 to 24 months, noted Marc Furman, senior administrative assistant for the council, which represents more than 50,000 union carpenters in Arizona, Nevada, Southern California and Utah.

"We keep monitoring the market," Furman added, in addition to offering specialty tradeshow training for members.

Chris Brown, Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management chairman and senior vice president, conventions and expositions, for the Natl. Assn. of Broadcasters (which annually stages NAB in Las Vegas), said he is confident the Las Vegas unions will be able to handle his show's future workloads.

"There seems to be little doubt that the continued explosive growth in Las Vegas, in terms of both commercial development and exhibition space, will stretch the labor pool in the city," Brown said, adding that he and his IAEM and NAB teams "stand ready to support them in any way possible to ensure that the city can continue to adequately support the needs of the exhibition community."