Strike pushed Convention Center board to act — and carpenters were out

Exhausted by day-and-night bargaining, Carpenters union officials thought they had reached a handshake deal with Pennsylvania Convention Center officials by 2 a.m. May 1, 2014.

Yet by sundown, the carpenters were on strike, picketing at the Convention Center, where pandemonium ensued, John McNichol, the center’s chief executive, told Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) hearing board examiner Jack E. Marino on Tuesday.

“There was a lot of gnashing of teeth,” McNichol said, describing a deluge of worried communications from trade association executives, Philadelphia’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, salespeople, hoteliers, and politicians. “The sky was falling. Everyone was going crazy.”  

Whether a handshake deal existed is debatable, along with everything else relating to the carpenters' losing their work at the center nearly three years ago. McNichol said there was no agreement, just a final proposal from the carpenters to the Convention Center Authority board, which nixed it the morning of May 1.

By May 11, 2014, union carpenters, who had worked at the center since it opened, were out, their work distributed among four other unions, particularly the stagehands and the laborers.

The Carpenters union filed an unfair practice charge with the PLRB, saying center officials engineered a scenario that led to their ouster in retaliation for two strikes and the carpenters’ fighting hard to keep their members’ work.

At issue was a new customer satisfaction agreement that officials said was necessary to reverse business losses at the center.

“The funnel was empty,” McNichol said. “We were getting very strong signals from the industry” that high labor costs, hassles dealing with the unions, and a lack of enforcement of rules were discouraging bookings.

Allowing exhibitors to do more work on their own booths was key in the proposed agreement, but the carpenters opposed changes, because their members were doing that work.  They weren’t persuaded by McNichol’s argument that they would gain more hours because the center would become more popular. Three years later, that has proven to be the case as the center has seen record bookings. 

After the May 1 strike, which lasted a few hours, pressure mounted to repair the center’s tattered reputation, McNichol said. The board immediately  drew up a new satisfaction agreement and imposed a quick deadline — 11:59 p.m. Monday, May 5. Most unions signed, but not the carpenters.

Carpenters union leader Edward J. Coryell Sr., who also served on the authority board, told fellow board members at a May 6 meeting that he’d never sign the agreement, McNichol said.

 “He was adamant.”

On May 9, Coryell signed, but the work was already distributed to other unions. Marino asked McNichol why the agreement couldn’t be redone to accommodate Coryell. “I would have traded one lawsuit for five,” McNichol responded.

McNichol said the center did not intend to boot the carpenters, an assertion backed in testimony from Michael Barnes, John Dougherty, and Ryan Boyer, leaders of the Stagehands union, the Electrical Workers union, and the Laborers union.

Dougherty said he tried to persuade Coryell to sign the agreement by the deadline. “I was on the phone for two hours," Dougherty said, "but after a certain time he stopped answering my calls."

Source: Philly.com