Restaurant Show Over Its Labor Pains

Chicago—If anybody involved with Chicago labor unions, venue operators or the convention center has anything to say about it, McCormick Place will not lose one more show to another city perceived to be more labor-friendly.

Three years ago, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley gathered all those players in one room and told them things had to change.

For his part, Robert Fulton, president of the Riggers Union Local 136, said, "I got fed up with reading stories in the Chicago papers that just weren't true. I wanted to say our union is not responsible for starting the Chicago fire."

That meeting may have been the impetus for what McCormick Place General Manager David Causton called a "test case" two years ago at the Natl. Restaurant Assn. Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in which the riggers would, on a case-by-case basis, decide to trim what had been mandatory three-man crews down to two-man crews.

That led to a new contract a year ago between service contractors and the riggers union that mandated the following:

• those two-man crews, in most cases;
• reduced overtime charges, particularly on Saturdays;
• no overtime charges at all during the first four hours after a show closes;
• staggered start times;
• more liberal use of apprentices (who work for 30 percent less than journeymen);
• a wider range of tasks exhibitors can do themselves; and
• customer service training for union workers.

The first show to see these changes was the triennial NPE: the Intl. Plastics Showcase, but the real test was the restaurant show, held May 19–22, because of the high-profile threat Natl. Restaurant Assn. Senior Vice President Mary Pat Heftman made two years ago that the group would consider moving the show (No. 30 on the 2007 Tradeshow Week 200) from Chicago if changes were not made.

The verdict?

"So far, so good," Heftman said on the last day of move-in.

"If there are any issues, I don't know about it," said Mamie Haynes, an exhibit manager with Anheuser-Busch.

"Of course we're saving money," said Diane Scripps of Structural Concepts. "We pay these guys by the hour."

Scripps, exhibits manager for Structural Concepts, a refrigerated display case maker that has been in the NRA show for five years and exhibited at McCormick Place for more than 30 years, said the move-in by the reduced work crew made perfect sense.

Pat Chukala, responsible for the exhibition program of tableware maker Villeroy & Boch, had transportation problems that delayed the delivery of her company's booth by a day. It wasn't until early the morning of the day before show opening that riggers could move her exhibit onto the showfloor.

Still, she had no complaints.

"The union guys were great," Chukala said. "I didn't have any problems."

This mutual admiration society did not develop overnight.

"It was a very difficult thing for our members to adjust to," Fulton said. "Change is a hard thing to do. It's taken baby steps."

However, he added, union workers have slowly seen the benefit to their own wallets.

"Whether you're making $30 or $90 an hour, if the tradeshows aren't here, you're not making anything," Fulton said.

The relaxed work rules that shows like NPE and NRA benefit from came with a price. The five-year agreement riggers signed last year gave them a 12.8-percent increase in wages and benefits the first year that will amount to about a $12-an-hour raise by the final year of the contract.

Still, according to an audit commissioned by the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority, cost savings to NPE's 1,838 exhibitors amounted to $400,000. The NRA show will undergo a similar audit.

"The riggers made the major change," said John Patronski, executive vice president of industry development for GES Exposition Services. "Now we want to start setting the table for what the next steps are."