UPDATE: “We didn’t think we could come back to Philadelphia
after 2005,” said Jim Greenwood, the former U.S. Congressman (R-Bucks) and
state representative, who is now president of the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, which brought 17,000 BIO delegates to the center for its
international conference that year. But BIO is back, with its 1,100-person
Industrial Biotechnology event this year, and its much larger World Conference
next year, “because the Center has grown,” thanks to its 2011 state-funded
expansion, Greenwood told me. “With the addition, we could do this.”
How does he feel running the first show under the new labor
rules, which allow exhibitors to do more of their own set-up? “It’s been smooth
so far,” he said. “We’re glad at least most of the unions have agreed” to the
new rules. Behind him, in Hall A, exhibitors and members of the unions who
approved the new work rules – the Electrical Workers, Laborers and Stagehands –
were setting up booths. Security and Center employees declined to let
non-exhibitors into the hall.
EARLIER: The Pennsylvania Convention Center opened for work
at 7:45 a.m. Monday as IBEW Local 98 leader John Dougherty, Sam Staten Jr. and
Ryan Boyer of Laborers Local 332, and Michael Barnes of the Stagehands joined
about 30 members of their unions going into the halls to begin work on exhibits
for the Bio 2014 industrial conference.
They walked past picket lines of about 30 members of
Teamsters Local 107, one of two unions displaced from the center starting this
week because their leaders did not sign new work rules by last week's deadline.
The pickets, along 11th St. from Arch to Vine, were outnumbered by city
uniformed and plainclothes police officers. Other officers and supervisors
stood on corners all the way west to the center's Broad St. entrance. Agents of
the Wilmington-based Gettier private security agency checked credentials and
turned non-employees away at center doors.
About five members of the other ousted union, Carpenters
Local 107, picketed near the center's 12th and Arch St. entrance, handing out a
lime-green flier that denounced "this heartless decision," and
adding, "All we want is fairness, the return of our jobs and the right to
work." The Teamsters' Sean Dougherty, coordinating pickets from 11th and
Vine, referred questions to officers at Local 107's Southampton office.
Carpenters referred queries to union chief Ed Coryell Sr. at the union's Spring
Garden St. headquarters.
The unions that are working today agreed to a new set of
work rules that give exhibitors expanded rights to set up their own booths
without paying union wages of around $25-50 an hour plus benefits; allows
management to set up a list of preferred Convention Center workers; and
streamlines drug testing and grievance rules. The Carpenters and Teamsters
complained the rules would reduce union work hours by as much as half.
The center claims the rules will enable union workers to
more than make up lost hours by attracting many new shows. State taxpayers
committed nearly $800 milllion to an expansion of the center, completed in
2011, which was supposed to house up to 30 major multi-day shows a year, but
only one-quarter to one-half that number are scheduled for each of this and the
next three years.
In his office upstairs, Center CEO John McNichol Jr. said
work is on schedule to set up the Bio show, which is expected to draw 1,100
delegates including DuPont Co. chief executive Ellen Kullman and other industry
figures over the next three days. Center general manager Lorenz Hassenstein
moved quickly up stairs and down the long central hallway, coordinating staff
by phone.
The Bio 2014 show will open later today, "and we're
looking forward to it," Bio spokesman Paul Winter said at a City Hall
press event introducing a Dodge fitted with a $200 manufacturers' kit that
burns 85% ethanol. (According to this Reuters story, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady,
D-Phila, a member of the Carpenters local now protesting the center, was
instrumental in appealing to Vice President Joe Biden, on behalf of the
Philadelphia-area oil refinery operators Monroe (Delta), Carlyle (Sunoco) and
PBY (Delaware City and Paulsboro), in delaying EPA rules that would have
boosted mandatory ethanol fuel use above today's levels.)
Asked if leaders of the Carpenters and Teamsters had
miscalculated -- both offered to sign the new work rules belatedly, after the
center's deadline and after the other unions had agreed to new terms --
McNichol declined to characterize their response.
Asked about Teamster claims they were ready to sign but
officers were out of town last week, McNichol said, "Had we any indication
from either union that they had any intent to sign before the deadline, that
would have potentially changed the equation. But we didn't get that."
The Carpenters' Coryell has argued that the center wrongly
abandoned negotiations on a contract extension and attempted to impose new work
rules unfairly. McNichol and other center officers have said these are two
separate documents and the unions understood the choices they were making.
"All the contractors are moving forward," McNichol
added, speaking of the firms that set up and take down convention exhibits.
"Like us, they don't have a choice. They do this for a living."
Exhibitor rules in Philadelphia have been controversial for
years; why did the question come to a head now? McNichol said the old 10-year
agreement's expiration this year set a "natural timeline" for new
rules. He noted the board had first brought in SMG and streamlined the center's
administration before asking for new work rules. "We had several iterations of a deal on
the table that I think labor would have viewed as more favorable, but they
couldn't come to an agreement. After last week's (May 1 Carpenter's) strike, it
forced the board's hand. We had to draw a line in the sand."
The board laid the groundwork by binging in SMG, McNichol
added. "A private operations manager was a meaningful change," he
said. "They have industry depth and breadth and knowledge of best
practices." He said complaints from shows to the Philadelphia Conventions
and Visitors Bureau dropped to near zero since SMG took over late last fall.
Source: Philly.com
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