Report Shows Contractors, Trade Associations Squeezing Exhibitors at McCormick Place

Coli: Labor is Not the Problem in Trade Show Industry

A three-month Crain’s Chicago Business investigative report shows the trade associations and contractors are responsible for the price-gouging practices at McCormick Place that have caused some big trade shows to leave or threaten to leave Chicago over the last two years.

In 2009, when exhibitors complained of high costs at the convention center, lawmakers rushed through legislation imposing wage cuts and work-rule changes on unions at the convention center.

But labor represents a small share of exhibitors' costs at McCormick Place. The reforms required no meaningful concessions from trade associations or show contractors GES and Freeman that continue to squeeze exhibitors, who already bear most of the convention costs.

 “For more than a year, this is exactly what we have been trying to tell lawmakers: labor is not the problem, the contractors are the problem. Finally, someone has done their homework and discovered we were right all along,” said John T. Coli, President of Teamsters Joint Council 25. “The only ones who were asked to make concessions were labor organizations. Legislators let their own feelings of panic cloud their judgment, and they bowed to the trade show managers.”

Read Crain's Chicago Business' Report

Meanwhile, the man who legislators named as McPier trustee, James Reilly, has deep ties to the contractors. According to Crain’s, contractors paid Reilly $237,000 in consulting fees from August 2004 through 2008.

Reilly denies any conflict of interest.

“I’m an honest person, and (legislators) trust me. It’s only a conflict if you’re able to make money from the relationship,” Reilly told Crain’s.

A federal judge on March 31, 2011, ruled the state legislation that altered the collective bargaining agreement for trade show workers at McCormick Place be overturned because it is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. Teamsters Local 727, which represents hundreds of trade show workers, spent more than $150,000 in litigation costs to fight the law, which restricted overtime hours for union workers, cut crew sizes and freed exhibitors to do more work inside their booths without union labor.

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority on April 4 asked U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman for a stay on the injunction he handed down pending their appeal. The motion has been fully briefed and the union is awaiting the judge’s final decision.

Teamsters Local 727 is an affiliate of Teamsters Joint Council 25, which represents more than 100,000 hardworking men and women throughout Illinois and Indiana.

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