McCormick Place… it’s not a “profit center”
Friday, January 15th, 2010
This week was an interesting one for trade shows based in Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center in the near future. Apparently, legislation in Illinois proposes to convert tradeshow union laborers into public employees.
They plan to WHAT?
Yes, they plan to make the show more efficient, transparent, and effective, and less expensive to boot. All by a magical transition of changing the labor pools at McCormick into government employees (presumably municipal employees of the MPEA - we’ve mentioned them here before, me thinks…).
Actually, the FIVE labor unions will become THREE, laborers will no longer be able to strike, and contracts will be negotiable on an individual show basis.
One additional mandate was stipulated in the fine print of the legislation*:
All subsequent references to “Union” labor(ers) must hereafter include quotations hitherto delineated ["Union" labor]. (more…)