McCormick Place is the huge exhibition center in Chicago. Over the years the unions have made McCormick Place too expensive and too much hassle for many exhibitors. Long-time McCormick Place shows have left for Vegas and Orlando.
As a former exhibitor at McCormick Place I can tell you that only a union employee can plug in a cord, and only the right union can send that employee. Exhibitors can’t touch a thing. The cost for plugging that plug, probably $100.
With a tight economy, exhibitors began to look at the cost advantages of moving from Chicago to Orlando and Vegas. They began moving their venues. After several big ones moved, Chicago politicians actually noticed. Each convention brings in millions of dollars in revenue to the city. Hotels, cabs, restaurants, airlines, and all suffered with each lost exhibitor. The city lost tax revenue.
So, the state of Illinois put in an order curtailing certain union activity to help keep what business McCormick still has. The union sued and the judge ruled for the union. Another big exhibitor announced they are leaving. Now, the city must pay the difference between the costs promised to the next few exhibitors and the real cost with the union court victory. And, the next option put forth by the city is to make employees at McCormick Place city employees, like police and firemen.
We are always told that being anti-union is being unfair to the working man or woman. To that, I say, nonsense. To make sure the greedy, lazy( I can say that because I personally observed the work ethic of the average union employee at McCormick Place), and unfriendly union man can make more than they are worth, revenue is lost costing more hard working people their jobs or least their income.
Each convention lost costs money to waiters in restaurants, bellmen at hotels, cabby’s, etc. More damage is done to more working men and women by the Teamsters at McCormick Place protecting non-competitive wages and work rules than are gained at McCormick Place. And, ultimately, many of those will be laid off. This will inspire the union to ask for more, since hours will be cut and overtime non-existent. Ultimately, the union will put McCormick Place out of business.
Our president, simply because he needs campaign money, organization, and votes from the unions, is willing to McCormick Place this entire country. He is letting his NLRB run rampant over the common sense need for jobs today. He will let the NLRB close the new Boeing plant in South Carolina. a five-person board has all of this power. A five-person board stacked with union supporters. Congress has nothing to say about the Boeing situation. Roosevelt made sure of that with the Taft-Hartley Act.
Now, the NLRB wants to shorten the time to unionize a business. So short that the management won’t have time to mount a defense.
Money and politics are driving all of this. You wonder why employers aren’t hiring? We have a president who puts the union label above jobs and economics.
Proof, the GM takeover. Stockholders lost everything. Bondholders lost most everything. Non-union retirees, most everything. Creditors, most everything. Taxpayers, best case only $15-20 billion for us. Union employees and retirees, not a red cent.
Want to see the USA become McCormick Place, just re-elect Obama for a second term. He will repay those union dollars and increase union membership in both the private and public sectors. The result will be just like McCormick Place, many of those companies will go out of business or move offshore. We will go deeper into recession and there will be no path back to our manufacturing past.