Fifteen years ago, I volunteered for a guy here in town to help set up an exhibit in that rat hole. It was for an electronics business he owned. When we pulled in, we started unloading were told we had to wait for some union. We had to pay them and the elevator operator to take the stand upstairs. I started to put the stand together and was physically assaulted by the carpenters union. It took them four hours to put nuts on the fifteen bolts we needed to erect the stand. I went to plug in a wire in the wall and was, again pushed. “WE do all the electrical work!” Three hours later, we got plugged in. The bills kept mounting and some a**hole said we needed to pay some fee for a janitors union to clean up after we left. My buddy said “F this. Let’s leave.” We had to pay the same fees to unload the stuff we brought up to show, but we left the exhibit there. Let them dispose of it. The people who charged him to exhibit didn’t give him his exhibit space money back. All told, he lost $7,000 and never got to exhibit anything.
A plumbing contractor I know outfitted his new house with high end fixtures, stuff you might read about in Architectural Digest!
He explained that at the end of the show the vendors do not want to pay $$$ to have the display carried out, so they sell for way less. He then has his own union plumbers pick it up.
Yes Chicago is a union town! How is the CES summer show going? And about the city union pensions?
“All told, he lost $7,000 and never got to exhibit anything.”
The important thing is the union thugs got home safely at the end of the day.
Me personally, I think it should be a little more up-in-the-air than that.
Yep. Same thing happened to my sister and her friend’s company. They used to exibit in the Philly show. It is quite something to see.