Convention Center CEO tells it like it was

For a soft-spoken professional lobbyist, John McNichol, new CEO of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, deserves credit for candor, at least. Take his speech yesterday to the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, exceprts posted here by the Business Journal's Francis Hilario. Highlights:

Back pre- 2003, "the show floor was the Wild, Wild West. Unions were literally fighting on the docks. We had [motorcycle gangsters] brought in by some of these unions to enforce their own jurisdictional guidelines. It was that bad, if you can imagine... Criminal elements in the building, basically, that we had to deal with from time to time."

Then-Mayor John Street "basically put a gun to the union’s heads and said, 'Here’s the new deal. Sign this. We’re putting in a labor supply program and we’re carving up jurisdictions. This is how it’s going to work.'" But there was no political will to enforce the deal: "Customers quickly started to realize it was a meaningless document – that the unions had free license to bully them, extort them, overcharge them and then the contractors started to come to town and blame labor and then up charge. It was a vicious circle."

Now it's different --  McNichol and his board have negotiated stricter labor rules -- which has made him a target, he says, for the Carpenters' Union, which resisted the changes, and has been excluded from the Center: "You might see the pick-up truck running around with the bullhorn saying, 'Shame on the Convention Center,' or flyers. I’m public enemy No. 1. I’m the poster child for all that’s wrong with big business."

And, all better: "When people walking into the Convention Center, you’re going to have half a dozen people saying hello to you. Why? Because we’re following your model – we are becoming hospitality-driven and customer-focused. Don’t ask me why it wasn’t that way – it wasn’t. But it is now..."

Next, concluded McNichol: His staff is about to “steal a piece of business away from Boston and bring it to Philadelphia.”

Source: Philly.com