All in all, better than expected.
McCormick Place operations would get a substantial makeover under changes approved Wednesday by the convention center’s interim board.
Show organizers would have to deal with fewer unions. The organizers could bid out their electrical work and order in food. Wonder of wonders, it looks like an exhibitor could even get up on a ladder, plug in a heat lamp and power up a screwdriver on his own, without having to pay big fees for small tasks.
These changes, at first blush, look like they would go a long way to answer the biggest criticisms of McCormick Place customers who have been threatening to take some of the nation’s biggest trade shows to other cities. The customers have been begging McCormick Place to make its operations affordable. They’re tired of getting fleeced.
The interim board voted to:
•Make union workers at McCormick Place employees of the convention center. Currently, the unions (Teamsters, electricians, carpenters, riggers and decorators) bargain with show contractors, and McCormick Place has no authority over those contracts. The interim board proposes that the unions bargain directly with the board. The unions would have no authority to strike. Labor would be organized into three units: move in/move out, assemble/disassemble and electrical/production. The required work force would be reduced, though let’s hear what the pension implications are.
•Provide the kind of “exhibitor rights” common in other cities. Think ladder, heat lamp, power tool. That will save money and reduce hassles if the changes are well-defined.
•Get out of the utility business. Focus One, the much-criticized in-house electrical unit of McCormick Place, would be closed. Customers could bid out their electrical work. This is absolutely essential.
•Cancel its food services contract and allow exhibitors to order packaged food from outside restaurants and other vendors.
The interim board also wants approval from the General Assembly to restructure its debt, which would save $40 million to $50 million a year in tax revenue that goes to debt service. The board wants to apply half of the savings to its operating expenses. It stands to lose $20 million in revenue from the electrical and food services it will give up and wants to make up that money.
The rest of the savings would go to the cash-strapped state. Illinois is hardly in a position to let any of that money slip away, though. So let’s hear more about this — and see if there are more ways for McCormick Place to squeeze out operational costs.
All this now goes to a special committee established by the General Assembly to deal with the McCormick Place crisis and eventually to the House and Senate, which is under the gun to act quickly. There is likely to be union pressure on legislative leaders to weaken some of the proposed changes.
Gov. Pat Quinn becomes more of a factor at this point. Take note that his appointees to the interim board opposed some of the more significant changes that were approved Wednesday.
The legislature has to build on the proposals of the interim board, rather than backslide. It also needs to push for changes in the management of McCormick Place. Bring in the pros.
A true revolution at McCormick Place — we know, we’ve heard this promise many times before — is essential to the Chicago economy. McCormick Place generates 65,000 jobs and $8 billion in local economic activity. It is at grave risk of losing a big chunk of that activity.
But it also has an opportunity to grab more shows, to be more competitive against Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. More business means more hotel rooms and restaurants filled, more taxies bustling down the street … and more jobs for Illinois.
