McPier board backs labor, contractor, food changes

Published on April 21, 2010 10:55 AM | Submit a comment
By Kathy Bergen |

The board of the agency that runs McCormick Place voted to recommend making its union workers public employees without the right to strike, as a tool to try to wrest further changes in work rules that add to customer costs and aggravations.

It also voted to recommend reducing the number of unions that work in the complex and as well as to recommend giving the exposition authority the right to review show contractor invoices to ensure that labor cost reductions are passed along to customers.
The board also backed a recommendation to eliminate Focus One, its in-house electrical service, whose high prices have been a source of customer anger, allowing the hiring of outside contractors.

The Focus One vote was split, 4-3, with Mayor Richard Daley's appointees voting in favor, and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's appointees voting against.

The board also voted to give customers the ability to order package food from outside vendors. That vote broke down the same way.

The board is now considering a governance change that potentially would give the city of Chicago and its mayor greater control of the authority, which is a joint state-city agency.

The board also just voted to recommend that convention-related marketing funding from the city and state be directed to the authority, rather than to the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau. The bureau currently markets McCormick Place and receives most of that marketing funding.

Earlier it recommended the General Assembly approve a restructuring of its debt as well as an operating subsidy in the neighborhood of $20 million to $25 million.

It will forward its recommendations to a legislative panel studying how to make Chicago more competitive with lower-cost rivals.

The board split over the proposed change in governance, so no change will be recommended.