On Monday, Governor Pat Quinn and Mayor Richard Daley announced plans to propose legislation aimed at boosting the city's convention business. The announcement came on the heels of recent news that two major trade shows will not return to Chicago, due in part to union-imposed labor fees at McCormick Place.
According to a press release issued by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates McCormick Place and Navy Pier and is known as McPier, the proposed legislation would establish the company as a public employer. By granting McPier the authority to negotiate contracts with show labor, prohibit strikes, and audit contracts, the change would give the venue's managers greater control over union costs. The legislation would also reduce the number of bargaining units currently representing McPier and trade show employees.
"This is a jobs bill," said John S. Gates Jr., McPier chairman, in the release. "By modernizing the work rules for a few hundred workers in one building, cutting management, and increasing transparency, we can preserve and expand the 65,000 jobs that our industry supports."
Apart from labor reform, McPier is taking actions to restructure its debt. Although government subsidies support operating costs at convention centers in Las Vegas and Orlando, the city's greatest competitors for convention business, McPier receives no such assistance from local government, and all tax revenue received by the organization goes toward capital debt accrued by the construction of new buildings. In light of the recession—which lead to a heavy dip in tax revenue generated by trade shows and conventions—the exposition authority will ask the General Assembly to approve a restructuring of capital expansion debt in 2010.
The proposed legislation will have a hard time gaining approval from local lawmakers, The Chicago Tribune reported today. Instead of granting more authority to McPier managers, who were appointed by the mayor and the governor, a House committee voted for a bill that would replace the current board with an interim panel, which would review the escalating costs at McCormick Place.
"We want to get to the bottom of the problem, figure out what's gone wrong, and figure out how we can do a better job in the future," said Chicago House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie. "We're at a crisis, a crisis of management. Its time for a little new broom, a little clean sweep."
On the possibility of a debt restructuring, Currie said: "If they can convince us that it makes economic sense to extend the taxes or extend their borrowing power, well, we have the opportunity to come back and do that. But I don't think that we want to, nor do I think we should, write a blank check."
