Workers at the Pennsylvania Convention Center who belong to Local Eight of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America went on strike Thursday morning.
Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who work at the Convention Center are picketing alongside the carpenters.
A picketer who wouldn't identify himself said that members of all six labor unions who work at the Convention Center are honoring the picketing, leaving none of those workers inside.
About a dozen picketers are on Vine Street between 11th and 12th streets where they are blocking off the entrance to the Convention Center's loading dock.
The picketers are holding signs saying, "Elliot-Lewis Unfair."
Elliot-Lewis is the labor broker at the Convention Center. An article in the Philadelphia Business Journal on Friday said it is disliked by both the Convention Center union workers and convention planners that use the facility.
The unions are negotiating new contracts to work at the Convention Center. A private company, West Conshohocken, Pa.-based SMG, has been hired to run the center, but won't take over its operations until Oct. 1.
The strike threatens the American Association of Diabetes Educators' convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 7-10 at the center.
Greg Fox, who chairs the center's board of directors, said the strike came as a complete surprise.
An unusual twist to the strike is that the president of the carpenters union, Ed Coryell Sr., was recently named to the center's board of directors, meaning the local union he leads is striking a facility he helps govern.
Exhibitors have long complained about the cost of labor at the center, which opened a $780 million expansion two years ago.
Check back for more updates throughout the day.
Source: Philadelphia Business Journal
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