Experience Matters

Brian Beutler explains why there are so few outlets available here at YearlyKos:

The McCormick Convention Center is, unsurprisingly, operated by a series of labor groups who, working hand in hand, rip apart the building and put it back together to fit the needs of whichever group happens to be renting space here. So for YearlyKos, the teamsters, and the plumbers, and the electricians all come in to haul partitions, and divert piping, and... lay wiring. One catch is, of course, that the more wiring you need, the more you have to pay. The other, less obvious catch, is that any wiring you try to do yourself--running extension chords and power strips across the room--might well violate your contract and cost you a big fine. So the result is a lot of dead laptop batteries. At a frickin' blogger convention.

But now here's the catch. At his booth, John Edwards has three seemingly unauthorized power strips (one of which is pictured above) and Barack Obama has one. Hillary Clinton's booth, by contrast, is clean, proving once again that experience makes a difference.

Comments

So union work rules are set up so that plugging in a power strip results in being fined. Hmmm.

Posted by sd | August 2, 2007 6:05 PM

So will this turn a whole bunch of liberals against union work rules?

Posted by too many steves | August 2, 2007 6:06 PM

Something to remember next time Dems try to unionize TSA employees.

Posted by Fred | August 2, 2007 6:08 PM

"At his booth, John Edwards has three seemingly unauthorized power strips "

As Edwards says in this short video clip:

"I don't believe change is going to come from negotiation and compromise ... The idea that they're going to voluntarily give away their power is a fantasy."

We've got to take the power strips back.

Posted by Petey | August 2, 2007 6:08 PM

Something to remember next time Dems try to unionize TSA employees.

Ah, good old anti-union arguments, as uselessly anecdotal as ever.

Posted by Steve | August 2, 2007 6:25 PM

Thanks for the nostalgia. I ran a booth at McCormick Place many years ago -- same old union rules threatening big trouble if you did anything yourself. Good times, good times ...

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 2, 2007 6:27 PM

Thanks for the nostalgia. I ran a booth at McCormick Place many years ago -- same old union rules threatening big trouble if you did anything yourself. Good times, good times ...

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 2, 2007 6:30 PM

Where are people headed for kicks at night?

Check out Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge for jazz and drinks -- it's not far from McCormick.

(Although, looking at their calendar, I happen to know that the show listed for tonight there either won't happen or there will be some other act playing.)

Posted by live | August 2, 2007 6:32 PM

Something to remember next time Dems try to unionize TSA employees.

Correction... TSA inspection managers. :)

Posted by Tyro | August 2, 2007 6:57 PM

Some unions do bad things therefore all unions are bad and we should let corporations run amok and let workers try to protect themselves as rugged individuals. I get it now!

Posted by RECOVERING TEAMSTER | August 2, 2007 7:22 PM

I've always wondered why electricians' unions impose work rules like this. It's obviously understandable why they wouldn't want untrained people running exposed live electrical wiring, but this is very different from plugging in a power strip or running CAT5 cable. Don't they get paid by the hour or the day? If so, why do they care about this? Worse, incidents like this make unions in general look bad, and discredit unionism in the eyes of those who need it the most.

IT workers, who in many cases are in desperate need of unions to protect them against managerial caprice and extensive unpaid overtime, almost all have stories like this. They can tell you ridiculous tales about union men cutting their network cabling and refusing to allow them to do low-voltage wiring, even when the union workers aren't adequately trained to run such wiring. This sours them on the union movement as a whole.

Strong and effective unionization need not imply a lack of workplace flexibility. After all, the MLBPA does very well by its players, but it doesn't prevent teams from trading players regularly and from moving them to other positions or functions. The Yankees didn't have to get a special dispensation to move A-Rod from shortstop to third base.

Posted by Josh G. | August 2, 2007 7:50 PM

As a guy who represents building trades unions for a living, this is not ringing entirely true to me. The notion that the unions run McCormick Place seems like a stretch.

There also may be some good building code reasons to limit the proliferation of power strips, extension cords, etc. But that doesn't sound nefarious enough.

C'mon progressives -- or is it liberals?

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | August 2, 2007 8:03 PM

The Chicago electrician union has been doing this forever, so it's clearly in their best interest. The point of all these niggling work rules is to eliminate competition on the supply side, because wages are determined by supply and demand. Every organization that puts up a booth at McCormick Place has employees quite capable of plugging stuff together, but they aren't allowed to because they would compete with union members.

Obviously, union work rules like these lower the overall productivity and thus prosperity of America. The better overall way for America to tilt the supply-demand balance in favor of higher wages for the working class is to protect the borders, to keep what Marx called "the reserve army of the unemployed" from competing as much with American workers.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 2, 2007 8:05 PM

Yeah, instead of demanding living wages for all, we should keep poor brown people out of the US; enhanced racial purity is a serendipitous consequence.

Steve, I like the way you think, and the way your initials spell SS...

Posted by Gregorio | August 2, 2007 8:09 PM

"The better overall way for America to tilt the supply-demand balance in favor of higher wages for the working class is to protect the borders"

I think we ought to execute everyone in America with the first name of Steve. We'll put 'em in concentration camps first before we gas 'em. That way, we can restrict the labor force enough to drive up wages.

(Plus the beneficial side effect is that we'll finally be free of the racist vermin like Sailer who are contaminating our precious bodily fluids.)

Posted by Petey | August 2, 2007 8:10 PM

petey, I think you're adorable and all, but watching you take on Steve Sailer is like watching the Celtics take on the Knicks. You better pray for a Garnett trade to save your ass, brother!

Posted by Gregorio | August 2, 2007 8:16 PM

First of all, I am SO not on board with Petey's idea.

More to the point, we consumers face annoying contractual requirements all the time.

When a corporation demands them on its own initiative, conservatives are quite content with market-based solutions. Deal with a different company, they say.

But when a corporation demands things because its employees, as part of a negotiating process, have convinced it to demand them of you, suddenly the conservatives find the whole process illegitimate. Unions are destroying our society! Close the borders!

Posted by Steve | August 2, 2007 8:27 PM

My late father-in-law was a Chicago union boss for the last decade of his life -- he was president of the musician's local.

Back in the good old days of the 1930s and 1940s when Petrillo was head of the local (and national) musicians' union, the union could enforce strict work rules. For example, Petrillo prevented college pep bands from playing at basketball games because the college kids weren't in the union. Petrillo shut down all recording in the U.S. for 14 months during WWII. He even withstood FDR's plea that the lack of new records was hurting the morale of our fighting men!

But the rise of amplification and recorded music vastly increased the supply of music available to venues, with little increase in demand, driving wages for musicians sharply downward despite the best efforts of the Musician's Union. Now, a few kids with electric guitars could make twice as much noise as two dozen brass instrumentalists used to be able to do. And the nightclub could just a hire disk jockey and not even pay local musicians at all.

So, my father-in-law largely ran the union like an elite guild representing the interests of the three places where live music by professionals was still de riguer: the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera, and the big Broadway touring companies. He was all in favor of "demanding living wages for all" his members, but, unfortunately, the employers didn't have to listen. Supply and demand is what determines wages.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 2, 2007 8:35 PM

Sounds to me like someone could make a quick buck selling power strips at YKos.

Posted by Fred F. | August 2, 2007 8:42 PM

It seems like a good deal to me, if you are an electrician. Look, let's say you have the same building, but you rewire it every time some new group of people use it, and charge them for the rewiring (This seems amazingly retarded to me-I'm honestly surprised that this is could be the case). This is convenient because you always have a little work, but it gets better, because copper is actually expensive as hell. So what the electricians are doing is stripping the building of wire that they can't reuse (which is all of it most of the time), and scrapping it for big bucks, which isn't calculated into costs (I know an apprentice electrician here in Colorado who makes about 400 dollars a month just on scrap copper and aluminum, which isn't considered a part of his income). The costs of the copper are always passed on to whoever is using the building, so, while this is economically inefficient, the electricians don't bear the burden for it. The rules that dictate the uses of extension cords and power strips are established by OSHA, not trade unions-they end up with some enforcement responsibilities only because they are the electrical experts. If you don't like unions, fine, but foisting power strip limitations on them and then going on about how evil unions are is just silly. Besides, there are actual reasons why you don't want a hundred crisscrossing extension cords and power strips plugged into one wall-it could actually start a fire and kill a bunch of liberal bloggers. Maybe some conservatives would be happy to chalk that up to casualties in the war against intrusive government, but it seems a safer bet to take the risks seriously and minimize them as much as possible.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 2, 2007 8:50 PM

That powerstrip looks like a last-minute, Wal-mart special. Why, I bet you could daisy-chain quite a few of those onto someone else's last-minute, Wal-mart extension cord before it actually overheated and lit that tacky carpet on fire.

Obviously, the electric code is part of a vast, union conspiracy to create more work for electricians and less for firefighters.

Posted by Jalmari | August 2, 2007 8:50 PM

Of course its the union! Which means none of you actually know that you'd be charged for the exact same thing in nonunion hotels. But then the money flows right to the owners so it all good.

Posted by Rob | August 2, 2007 9:17 PM

Compare "the evil unions" above with the previous story on copyright gone wild.

How about, instead of seeing these things as "you're on my team or you're not" we declare war on stupid, unproductive, or unfair behavior, regardless of whether it comes from the left or the right, from the rich or from the poor?

Posted by Maynard Handley | August 2, 2007 9:53 PM

"Extension chords"? Are those the ones the guitarist reeaally has to stretch his fingers to get?

/spelling nazi

Posted by Sean Peters | August 2, 2007 10:08 PM

If the IBEW had caught you they would have drug you into negotiations to lower their health care benefits.

Posted by Ed Marshall | August 2, 2007 10:10 PM

Gordon Lightfoot: Besides, there are actual reasons why you don't want a hundred crisscrossing extension cords and power strips plugged into one wall-it could actually start a fire and kill a bunch of liberal bloggers.

No, it couldn't, unless there were no fuses or breakers anywhere on that electrical circuit. (And that would be flagrantly in violation of every electrical code I know of.) If you overload an ordinary, properly designed electrical circuit - whether with power strips or anything else - it will simply trip the breaker and the power will be cut off.

Steve Sailer: "The better overall way for America to tilt the supply-demand balance in favor of higher wages for the working class is to protect the borders, to keep what Marx called "the reserve army of the unemployed" from competing as much with American workers."

It's not enough to do just one or the other. You have to do both. Unions and immigration restrictions are both vital in raising wages for America's working class.

Posted by Josh G. | August 2, 2007 10:16 PM

Great sleuthing!

However, at the risk of being very naughty, I would like to point out that this story might not differ that much from the non-workingman's $400 haircut issue.

The funny thing is that it's not the wisdom of the candidate on the issue that's the problem; both Hillary and Edwards have strong experience campaigning at the federal level and have had the chance to learn from mistakes. Rather, this is the kind of experience you are talking about must be purchased with money in the form of wise, experienced campaign staff.

Posted by artappraiser | August 3, 2007 1:09 AM

Just got around to reading today's WSJ, and there's this quote about unions from Whole Foods founder & CEO John Mackey:

"The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient"

Posted by Fred | August 3, 2007 1:26 AM

Mackey knows all about Herpes. Valtrex aisle 5!

Posted by Gregorio | August 3, 2007 3:44 AM

It's not just the electricity, as anyone whose ever exhibited at a convention / trade show / annual meeting can tell you. You cannot do much of ANYTHING for yourself except go to the bathroom. At just about any such event I've ever heard of, you cannot bring in or remove your stuff yourself--you MUST use union labor. Any and all setup of the booths, or changes to them, have to be done by union labor--even if it's as simple as getting another table or chair from the furniture closet fifty yards away. And if you're the group putting on the event, it's even worse. You must pay the union hourly rate, plus a few other charges, no matter how big or small the task. At a trade show a few years ago, the host committee wanted to hang a banner in the exhibit hall. It was about fifteen feet by ten feet, and might have taken two guys on step ladders about ten minutes to do. The union shift manager said it was a four man job, and wanted $400 to do it!

Look, I'm not against unions per se. It's just that liberals sometimes look at them with rose-colored glasses. The truth is that whenever anyone has a monopoly--on goods, services, or labor--they'll exploit it for all it's worth, because they can.

Posted by Claudius | August 3, 2007 8:40 AM

"Just got around to reading today's WSJ, and there's this quote about unions from Whole Foods founder & CEO John Mackey..."

The fact that the Whole Foods founder is in the WSJ whining about unions is a pretty good indication that unions are doing their jobs.

Posted by witless chum | August 3, 2007 9:38 AM

I'm pro-union, in my very small way, but I think this is a significant contributor to anti-union sentiment in this country. Traveling businesspeople aren't as analytical about this stuff as liberal bloggers are. I used to work for a company out of North Carolina that exhibited at trade shows, and the different situations in Rust Belt cities versus Sun Belt cities was quite noticeable, and all my colleagues used to remark on it. You go to a exhibit hall in New York or Chicago and you encounter these union rules which are really annoying , especially if you haven't grown up with them or can't place them in a larger context. You feel like you can't pick up a cardboard box without being yelled at or worse. And you go to Orlando or Houston and the rules are totally absent.

Posted by JBJ | August 3, 2007 9:41 AM

Well, first of all we don't rewire the whole building for each show. That's just crazy talk.
We do have to drop cables and run them to every booth and display, and make sure there is enough power and enough outlets to run all the exhibitor's equipment. The cabling for these jobs is reusable, so we don't make hundreds of dollars a month selling copper, either.
Some exhibitors save money by having only one outlet installed and adding power strips as needed. Others save even more money by "borrowing" an outlet from the next booth. Then they all bitch and moan when a circuit breaker pops how the outage is costing them sales and they lost unsaved data on their computers boo hoo.
The solution: next year give your booth designer a realistic estimate of your electricity needs. And just imagine the large captive audience you could have if you offered free laptop/PDA/cell-phone recharging to everybody who watches your presentation.

Posted by Xboy | August 3, 2007 10:35 AM

there are good reasons behind these union regulations, as Xboy points out.

but without a doubt, Unions need to do a better job of publicizing these reasons, or else it'll hurt business. no doubt most businesses which operate trade shows try to avoid unionized convention centers.

Posted by thehova | August 3, 2007 11:53 AM

The McPier work rules have been softened somewhat of late. But everyone saying that you can't do anything for yourself is WRONG--you can do it yourself, you just have to have the appropriate Union Worker there with you, billing his (or her) time as you do it.

Posted by zaleriana | August 3, 2007 12:21 PM

Nice, finally something other than The Wire that I feel qualified to comment on. I worked for three years as a project manager coordinating the logistics, setup and support of computers and audio visual equipment for trade shows and conferences. (And have continued to do contract work for the last four).

As someone commented above, in many convention centers it is not only power strips. You are also not allowed to wheel items to your booth from your car, move a table, plug in a wireless mic set or computer, etc. etc. It's not the case at all convention centers, but some (javits center in NY, McCormick Place in Chicago, Moscone Center in San Francisco) have very, very strict union work rules.

What many workers at that halls understand is that the less efficiently the show is set up, the more union hours required. This means more hours for their union brethren and, more importantly, probably overtime for themselves given all the hard deadlines for show setup. For example, if it is known that you can't leave that night till a roomful of computers are setup because they are to be networked first thing the next morning, you'll often find your stagehands (the local that does setup of computers in some halls) work much slower, ask a lot of questions, wander off, stand around unless directly ordered to do something, etc.

The worst anecdote I can relate was a time when we needed to move some tables to drop some wires through the skirting. Our stagehands refused to slide the tables out three inches because it was the role of different union. So we had to get a separate call (3 hour minimum) for a guy to move the table out. It took 90 minutes to get someone, so for those 90 minutes our stagehands stood around waiting. That's pretty extreme, but a good example of the sort of thing you deal with at some level constantly.

Anyways, the point is, unions do absolutely run certain halls in the US, and it is just about the purest form example of protectionism and work place rules run amuck you can find. The company I worked for was mainly made up of young IT professionals from UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz and were the sort of progressive, even Green Party leaning, people you might expect from those schools. Six months in the industry and to hear them talk you would have thought they were professional union busters.

Posted by trade show project manager | August 3, 2007 12:22 PM

I'm the Conference Organizer for BlogHer.

We had our 800+ bloggers in Chicago for our annual conference last weekend. At the Navy Pier.

"trade show project manager" is right on. Painful!

Posted by Kristy Sammis | August 3, 2007 3:07 PM

Trade Show & Kristy point up a big problem with these types of unions - it's not just about being paid well (which is great). It's about employing as many union members as possible, whenever possible, with no regard to efficiency, and often with a terrible attitude from the union members themselves (the walking away, the slow working, etc.) Plus the nepotism can be ridiculous, so you have people who are simply not very good at their jobs in these union categories because their dad is already in the union, while talented people are shut out. This also keeps the unions very white. "I got mine, Jack"

Posted by will | August 3, 2007 3:57 PM

With the exception of a couple of large cities, New York, Chicago, and possibly San Francisco, building trades unions are subject to fierce and indeed, often unfair, competition. (And even in these, once you leave the city itself, the non-union competition is formidable.) The notion that efficiency is not important to them is ridiculous. When your competition is using illegal aliens and paying them in cash or as phony subcontractors, you have a hard enough time commanding a decent wage let alone featherbedding. Places like the Javitz Center or McCormick Place are pretty unique.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | August 3, 2007 4:42 PM

The Chicago lakefront in August is a pretty glorious place to be, a lot better than going to a convention in Orlando in August, so the unions can get away with murder and people will still decide to exhibit at McCormick Place despite the expense and frustrations.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 3, 2007 7:05 PM

Sorry Steve, it doesn't count as a post unless you mention brown people.

Posted by Gregorio | August 3, 2007 7:39 PM

Having run a number of trade show booths at McCormick place over the years, i can tell you that the union rules there are pretty heavy-handed. I was always working for small companies with tight budgets and honestly, we wished we never had to set foot in Chicago (but sometimes your industry's big event is there, so tough luck).

And despite what some are saying, yes, it costs more to do this stuff in Chicago. I know; I had to pay the bills.

That doesn't make unions bad or evil but it does make Chicago a pain the butt for exhibitors at trade events.

Posted by John | August 4, 2007 9:40 AM

International fire code forbids power strips unless they are hardwired. Surge protectors are acceptable for computer equipment, though. Thank you Madison Fire Marshalls for picking on my former employer for so many years.

They can be dangerous because they can overload the wires before they trip the breaker, overheating and possibly melting the insulation.

So like most things, its for your own damn protection, because one person can't know everything.

Posted by steve | August 4, 2007 2:13 PM

"Xboy" makes a noteworthy technical point: these buildings are wired for portable-power applications where proper booth designs account for AC needs from rock-tour technique lights & sound, down to stuff like AC strips. Typically, the design will call for single or 3-phase 240-volt drops out of the building to design-spec. ("Where do you want this power-drop?") These services can go from as low as 60 up to 200 amps or more. These places are set up to do this stuff. There is no "rewiring the building".

Contra "thehova", I don't see where "Xboy" points out "good reasons behind these union regulations".

I've worked on rock-tour lights for thirty years. Along the way, I've necessarily worked on displays, sales rah-rahs, product roll-outs, etc. People have mentioned cities by name in this discussion so far, and I can say that the map is accurate, from my experience in American markets from coast to coast, including Chicago in general and McCormick in particular, for example.

I've seen all the abuses mentioned here, and lots more, and I know that when they're at their worst, these unions are worse than useless.

I hate to say it but it's the truth.

Posted by Billy Beck | August 5, 2007 1:03 AM