Are Unions Ready for A Change?

LAS VEGAS—The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Exhibition Services & Contractors Assn. and the Exhibitor Appointed Contractors Assn. produced the first-ever Tradeshow Natl. Labor/Management Conference here March 7-8.

Those present said they found the content useful and interesting. The meeting's only drawback might have been those not present: representatives of other unions; in particular, the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters.

“It's too bad the Teamsters weren't here to hear that,” said Ken Viscovich, international representative of the UBC.

Viscovich, a driving force behind the meeting, was referring to comments made during Friday morning's sessions, designed to “put the issues on the table,” as the day's agenda stated.

Jim Wurm, executive director of the EACA noted, “We invited other trades to participate here with us today. Unfortunately, many of them were not able to make it.” He added that one attendee from the Intl. Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union was “helping us move forward to involve all trades.”

National representatives of the Teamsters, who perform a great deal of the work on tradeshow floors across the United States, did not return calls from Tradeshow Week inquiring why the union did not participate in the conference.

As the name of the conference implied, it was a gathering of management - general contractors and EACs - and the labor – mainly, carpenters – that works on its tradeshows. Speakers stressed that the intent was to get the two sides together in an environment that was not a bargaining table, so they could talk about improving business practices free from the constraints of labor negotiations.

Presenters included top executives from the associations represented, as well as Freeman, GES Exposition Services and EAC firms such as the Term Group and Czarnowski. Drug use on the job and the need for better customer service stood out as problems that needed to be addressed, while the widespread availability of labor and cooperation among various management firms were recognized as hallmarks of success.

Aaron Bludworth, GES vice president of corporate events and current president of ESCA, outlined successes that general contractors have had working with labor, then added a few challenges that could be ahead: less robust economic times, which might impact the tradeshow industry; the need for management and labor to share “realistic expectations”; and new pressures to go green, which some were reluctant to accept.

Wurm gave a broad analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A few highlights:

• Strengths – the ready supply of large numbers of skilled labor, and the collective know-how of management
• Weaknesses – the blue collar-white collar tension that takes place on showfloors between workers and exhibit managers, and the problems that can result, as well as the lack of union contracts specific to tradeshow work
• Opportunities – the need for a national drug and alcohol policy and comprehensive customer service training
• Threats – the customer's (exhibitor's) lack of confidence in the product

“We have to talk about challenging issues, not just the easy ones,” Wurm said. “Where we are today is OK, but we can be a lot better than OK.”

In that vein, the second section of the conference featured representatives of management explaining in detail areas in need of improvement.

GES Vice President of Human Resources and Labor Relations Joe Sangregorio addressed the need for a drug-free workplace, beginning with some staggering statistics. In line with national trends and regulations, he said, GES, Freeman and other tradeshow-industry firms have since the early 1990s had drug-free-workplace policies that include random testing and other measures.

Over the past three years, Sangregorio added, GES has conducted an average 1,550 drug and alcohol tests for both union and non-union employees each year. From those, the company has found that 5 percent of tests taken in a variety of circumstances come back positive, and 7.5 percent of those taken as a result of an accident or some other incident have been positive.

Those statistics, higher than national workplace averages, “unfortunately prove that drug and alcohol use and abuse in the workplace is still prevalent in our industry and on the showfloor, a fact that we can't deny,” Sangregorio said.

The goal of the conference was to come up with solutions and methods for implementing them, he added. As a model, he suggested the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center's program, which lowered positive tests from 48 percent in early 2005 to 13 percent by the end of that year.

Today, positive tests at the D.C. center average around 3 to 5 percent, “and we're still not happy with that,” Sangregorio said. He cited the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions & Events' current drug-free-workplace initiative as a good step in the right direction.

Equally poignant were remarks by Steve Hagstette, senior vice president of Freeman. Addressing showfloor customer service and its long-term impact on the health of the industry, Hagstette read a sampling of comments culled by Freeman from recent exhibitor surveys. Although he began with some kudos, the complaints were at times stinging. For instance:

• “Rude and unhelpful. Couldn't have cared less about my issue, and basically told me 'Tough (expletive), this is the way it's going to be.'”
• “One worker was great; one was useless. Too bad we had to pay for two.”
• “Delivery was terrible. The crate our 10'x10' comes in was completely destroyed.”

“Exhibitors will have an experience. Everyone has an impact on that experience. Let's make it positive,” Hagstette concluded.

In his keynote address, Randy Eppard spoke about how to solve the customer service problem, using case studies culled from Business Week magazine's lists of top 50 customer service providers.

“When you make a mistake, if you fix it, you have a customer for a lifetime,” said Eppard, who is president of consultancy Organizational Strategies and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. “The opportunity to make a bad experience a good one is extremely compelling.”

Despite the nature of the day's presentations, which could have been construed as critical, attendees found them useful.

Tim Hildebrandt, of the St. Louis UBC, said the program was “excellent. ... We're in a business where we hear complaints all the time. We all relate to the problems they brought up, and they're all things that we have to work on mutually to correct.”

Saturday's sessions began the process, with three hours of open discussions and roundtables meant to start formulating action plans.