With the announcement of significant labor union concessions Tuesday, McCormick Place is on the brink of keeping the 2008 National Restaurant Association show in Chicago, where it has been a top trade show for more than 50 years.
“We’re close,” said Leticia Peralta Davis, chief executive of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs the massive exhibition hall that has been losing ground to facilities in Las Vegas and Orlando.
The restaurant association, which has been frustrated by union work rules and the cost of exhibiting and staying in Chicago, has been weighing a possible move to a rival city, with a decision expected within days.
The trade group “hasn’t proposed anything we find to be an insurmountable challenge,” said Davis. “Eighty-five to 90 percent is very achievable, and the rest just needs a little tweaking–it’s nothing insurmountable.”
Mary Pat Heftman, the association’s senior vice president/convention, said Tuesday a decision on 2008 would depend on the authority’s formal response to the association’s latest proposal. The show will remain in Chicago for next year.
Heftman praised the work-rule changes announced Tuesday in the new five-year pact between Riggers Union Local 136 and show contractors GES Exposition Services and Freeman Decorating. MPEA was involved in hammering out the deal.
McCormick Place management “really is taking a fresh look at things,” she said. “The key is to keep moving it along. MPEA can’t stop here.”
Keeping the restaurant show is critical for the city, which has suffered some recent losses, including the 2007 convention of the National Association of Realtors, and the Food Marketing Institute, which plans to start rotating its show between cities in 2008.
The 2006 restaurant show, which opens Saturday, is expected to attract more than 73,000 attendees and a record 2,100 exhibiting companies using about 600,000 square feet of exhibit space, which will make it the city’s No. 4 show. Last year, when there were fewer large shows in town, it was No. 1, and generated more than $100 million in spending locally.
The contract with the riggers, one of five unions that work McCormick Place shows, addresses a number of work-rule issues important to the National Restaurant Association and other groups that run trade shows at the center.
It increases the time periods in which exhibitors will be charged straight time. Weekday start times can be 8 a.m., 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m., with the next eight hours being straight time. After that, it’s time and a half. Currently, double time kicks in at 4:30 p.m.
When a show starts to dismantle, generally in the afternoon, straight time will apply from 4:30 to 8:30, then time-and-a-half kicks in. Saturdays will be time-and-a-half, instead of double time. Sundays remain double time.
Two-person work crews will be standard for most jobs, rather than three-person crews. And exhibitors can request specific workers from among 300 rigers.
The changes augment and clarify reforms made a year ago at McCormick Place. The earlier guidelines were less specific, leaving certain issues, such as crew size, to be negotiated.
“It’s fantastic, we’re dancing in the streets,” said Barbara Voss, show director of NPE: The International Plastics Showcase, a huge machinery-laden show that makes heavy use of riggers, and will be the city’s third-largest show this year.
The riggers’ contract start date was moved up one month, to June 1, so its terms would apply to this show, which occurs every three years, opening this year on June 19. And the contract runs five years, rather than three, so it will not expire near the next show, in 2009–a big plus for the organization.
In 2003 the contract expiration coincided with the move-out dates of the show, and many exhibitors, afraid of a potential strike, ended up paying overtime charges to dismantle quickly–and they were not happy about it, Voss recalls.
“A lot of our exhibitors took less space and are bringing less machinery for 2006 after their experience in 2003,” she said.
The riggers’ contract contains generous pay and benefit increases, with the total package rising by 12.8 percent in the first year and lesser rates in subsequent years.
The cost of the existing package, including wages, pension, health-care and apprentice training is currently $47 a hour. It will rise by $19.06 over the course of the next five years, union officials said, with some of the cost going toward funding pensions.
Although hourly rates are rising, exhibitors should benefit from the smaller crew size and the longer straight-time periods, GES and Freeman said.
Exhibitors at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual assembly should save more than $100,000 as a result of the changes, estimated Steve Drew, assistant executive director of RSNA, whose event is the world’s largest annual medical meeting, drawing more than 61,000 participants.
While pleased with the result, RSNA and others, including the restaurant association, say more change is needed.
“McCormick Place and Chicago are still at a competitive disadvantage,” Drew said, adding that he hopes the riggers’ contract will serve as a model. The decorators’ contract expires June 30, while the Teamsters’, carpenters’ and electricians’ contracts expire in later years.
The National Restaurant Association said labor costs and work rules are not the only issues. The organization would like bigger blocks of discounted hotel rooms made available, and would like to see more customer-service training for McCormick Place workers. As well, the group objects to the high level of sales and hotel taxes in Chicago and Cook County.
“This is a competitive business, and that’s a different culture than the way McCormick Place has been run for several decades–it’s a big boat to turn,” Heftman said.
By announcing the riggers’ pact Tuesday, the MPEA is trying to send a message, said Ted Tetzlaff, its chairman.
“We want to make clear to every customer and every potential customer that we hear you, and we are listening, and we want to make the experience what you want it to be,” he said.
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Details of changes
The deal with Riggers Union Local 136 represents the first big step in over a year to make McCormick Place more competitive in an increasingly cut-throat environment. Here are highlights of the five-year contract:
– It increases the time periods in which exhibitors will be charged straight time. Weekday start times can be 8 a.m., 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m., with the next eight hours being straight time. After that, it’s time and a half. Now, double time kicks in at 4:30 p.m.
– When a show starts to dismantle, generally in the afternoon, straight time will apply from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., then time-and-a-half kicks in. Saturdays will be time-and-a-half, instead of double time. Sundays remain double time.
– Two-person work crews will be standard for most jobs, rather than three-person crews. And exhibitors can request specific workers from among 300 riggers.
– Workers will see generous pay and benefit increases, with the total package rising by 12.8 percent in the first year and lesser rates in subsequent years.
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%% Average labor rates
Rank, City 2005 % chg
1 San Francisco $121.23 41.92
2 New York City 104.18 6.04
3 Atlantic City 83.74 -16.03
4 San Diego 81.19 -2.50
5 Chicago 79.48 0.59
15 Las Vegas 70.34 3.06
37 Orlando 59.11 7.20
%% Averages comprise costs for decorators, drayage, carpenters, riggers, electricians and plumbers
% change compares 2004 and 2005 rates
Source: Trade Show Week’s 2005 Annual Survey of Labor Rates
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Kbergen@tribune.com
