By David Weese
Staff writer
Last Monday, Governor Pat Quinn and Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley announced a plan to revitalize Chicago’s sagging convention business, but many unions feel the plan throws organized labor under the bus.
The plan calls for employees who work for private companies at the McCormick Place Convention Center and Navy Pier to be divided into three groups and become public employees. They would be required to sign on to a no-strike clause, and instead would have to agree to binding arbitration.
Another part of the plan would allow officials to review the books of companies doing business with the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority—commonly known as McPier—to ensure that savings negotiated with workers at McPier are being passed down to the customers.
“What we have to do is take the law that exists today and make it predictable and clear for those who stage conventions, work at conventions. Any time we have a chance to save maybe $50 million of taxpayers’ money we should take advantage of that,” Quinn said.
Quinn says that changes are needed at McPier because the current operation has become inefficient.
“I think everyone should see McPier, McCormick Place as a job farm. It’s got 65,000 jobs. We want to increase that number of jobs. We don’t want to decrease that number, we want to grow it. One way to do it is to have the elected officials work together,” Quinn said.

Union Response
Convention, trade show customers and others doing business with McPier have long complained about excessive costs at the facilities, but the unions who work there say they have negotiated three price cuts in the past 15 years with the city, but show managers have failed to pass those savings on to the customers.
Chicago Federation of Labor chief Dennis Gannon said, “Unions at McCormick Place have worked with management time and again to lower their costs and make work rules more customer-friendly. We need to rework the entire business model at McCormick Place, not just labor contracts.”
In the last few months, three major trade shows have announced that they have had enough of the high prices, and would be taking their future business to other cities. The International Plastics Showcase convention will now be held in Orlando and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society convention has left for Las Vegas.
The International Dairy Foods Association had been holding conventions every other year at McCormick Place in conjunction with the American Meat Institute, but when they decided to host their own yearly convention, the group decided it would hold its 2010 show in Dallas instead of Chicago’s McCormick place.
The Plastics Industry Trade Association would not release specific figures, but in a press release they said that moving their show to Orlando “could save the two groups an average of 48 percent on utilities for booths; 19 percent on on-site hauling (“drayage”) and rigging services for exhibitors; 23 percent on lodging; and 11 percent on travel.”
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society also cited high utilities costs as one of their reasons for leaving. Their convention used to rotate between Orlando, Chicago and Atlanta. They said the cost for electrical service for one of their exhibitor’s booths was $40,000 in Chicago as compared to $4,000 in Orlando.
Gannon was not at the press conference. Neither were many of Chicago’s top labor leaders. Gannon said he approved of the idea of auditing contracts, which is something labor has been trying to get McPier to do for some time now, but was rather non-committal on the idea of making McPier workers public employees subject to a no-strike clause.
“I need to run that up the flagpole with the unions down there (at McCormick Place),” Gannon said.
McPier officials have been quick to blame labor for the high cost of doing business, but many critics say that McPier has become a dumping ground for political patronage jobs. A recent Chicago Sun-Times article showed that as of September 2009, 54 McPier employees made at least $100,000. The article stated that was a 17 percent increase over the number of employees making the same amount in 2006, and McPier has lost, not gained business since that date.
Daley later told the Sun-Times that he has ordered all City Hall workers including himself, to take pay cuts, and would expect McPier officials to do the same. “I’ve taken a nine percent cut in salary—almost 20 days off without pay. Ask my wife. She’ll tell you that,” he said.
“When the economy is very, very challenging, it is time that government look within itself and understand that people are really suffering and they have to react. John Gates, the new chairman [of the McPier board] is looking at that very carefully, and I think he’ll do something about it.”
Gannon and other labor leaders touted figures that show that union rates for a carpenter in Chicago—$96.68 an hour—are actually better that the rates in other cities like New York and Los Angeles, which charge at $148.89 and $99.96 respectively. The problem, Gannon said, was that contractor often charge exorbitantly high prices for what’s known as drayage, or materials handling, which is beyond the unions control.
Gannon also said that other cities spend much more on subsidizing their conventions. Union leaders said the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau has a 2010 budget of just $13.7 million, which is less than last year.  They said Orlando’s convention and tourism budget is $47.7 million, and La Vegas’ budget is $143 million.

Legislative response
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), sponsored a measure that gets rid of the old board—who are Quinn and Daley appointees—and appoints an interim board to review procedures at McPier to come up with some better options. The measure also reduced the size of the board from 13 members to 7 members. Currie said the new board will be dissolved once McPier’s problems have been ironed out.
Current McPier CEO Juan Ochoa, an appointee of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, will get to keep his job, but will be under much closer scrutiny by the new board.
“We all know the convention business is down on a national basis, but we also know that Chicago is losing ground to competitors like Las Vegas and Orlando,” Currie said. “It’s my view that before we undertake this heavy lifting for the McPier authority, we need a better understanding of what went wrong and how we can make things right.”
The measure, which was put on the fast-track through the Illinois Legislature also calls for allowing McPier to refinance its debt. It just recently passed both houses in Springfield, and is now on the governor’s desk. Quinn is expected to sign it.
John Gates Jr., chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority told the Tribune, “This will be a road map, a fresh set of eyes that will bring things to a head so decisions can be made. I’m thrilled.”
The unions tried to introduce a customer bill of rights, but Daley dismissed it. “They can have a bill of rights all they want. It’s costs,” Daley said.
The bill of rights was proposed by labor leaders as a way to inform convention customers what the work rules are at the convention center and to outline the costs of various goods and services at McCormick Place, but Daley said it would do nothing to keep conventions in the city.
“You can have all the bill of rights— that doesn’t do anything,” Daley said. “What we’re asking for is how you lower the costs. It’s as simple as that. If Atlanta and Vegas and Orlando is doing a better job—we don’t want to lose any shows.”
Daley repeatedly told the press that he is not blaming unions for the loss of convention business. “This is not an anti-labor bill.” Daley said. He said that instead, the bill aims to “restore Chicago’s competitive edge.”