In response to John McCarron’s June 1 Op-Ed piece, I’d like to speak out on behalf of the nation’s finest trade show work force in the nation–the union workers at McCormick Place.
It is clearly evident that Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority CEO Jim Reilly has been conducting a carefully orchestrated public-relations campaign in concert with Chicago’s two major newspapers to destroy the reputation of the Chicago trade show unions. At the same time he is also destroying the reputation of our fine city as a preferred site for conventions. Whatever happened to journalistic balance?
Admittedly, there are problems. But many of these are totally beyond the control of the trade show unions. We in the unions did not design the facility. We do not control hotel room rates that cause exhibitors to show up at the last minute to save on hotel costs and who then are forced to pay overtime rates to set up their booth. We also do not control the rates charged for our work–the MPEA and the general contractors do.
The other day, I, along with three other decorators, was assigned to an exhibitor to set up a mechanically elaborate canopy in his booth at the Lakeside Center of McCormick Place. At 4:45 p.m., the exhibitor demanded that he get the four same decorators back the following morning. If we were such bad workers, why would he want us back?
He also explained to me that his company actually saved money by using union labor here in Chicago because he did not have to fly in his own people, house and feed them at exorbitant hotel rates, and pay them until the show was dismantled, as he would have had to do in a city that did not have as skilled a workforce as Chicago’s. But that story does not appear newsworthy to Chicago’s major newspapers.
Since I’m one of the union decorators at McCormick Place, I’d like to make McCarron an offer: I would be more than happy to take a day off from work at my expense and show him what is actually involved in putting up a trade show at McCormick Place.
Maybe, just maybe, he might be able to form an unbiased opinion about the real problems that exist, such as exorbitant hotel rates, MPEA and contractor inflation of labor rates charged to exhibitors, and the trade show associations’ inflation of the floor space rate (as much as 1,000 percent or more) charged by the MPEA.
How about it, John?
