When I first started in the trade show industry, I had no experience with unions. Then we exhibited at a show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Our booth was only a 10×20 but the Moss sign we used as a backdrop required two people to assemble. I went to the labor desk and hired a guy to help. We assembled the sign in about 30 minutes and I returned to the desk to sign him back in. This is where I learned the term “Four Hour Mini”. Union rules dictated that if you hired a union member to work on your exhibit you had to pay him for four hours regardless of how long you actually needed him. At nearly $100 an hour, my 30 minute job just got really expensive. Of course, every city has its own union and therefore its own union rules. This was another lesson I learned the hard way.
We exhibited at five shows with a 20×20 space or larger that first year and I spent a lot of time being very frustrated in regards to unions. Spending $400.00 per man for two guys I only needed for an hour and a half didn’t sit well with me. True, it wasn’t my money but it was money from the company I worked for and I really loved that company.
I contemplated often about how to convince a majority of the exhibitors at our shows to complain to the association about the General Contractor about being robbed by the unions. Of course it would have taken a miracle just to get a majority of exhibitors to agree to complain and even then we’re talking about one show in one city.
After the last show of the year we had a couple of months until our next show in January. I spent about a week looking over the five shows we’d done to see what worked and didn’t work. It was during this time that it hit me. It wasn’t my job to fight city hall. I was being paid to manage our program and ensure that we looked as good as possible at every show we went to. Union regulations are what they are and the efforts of one exhibit manager won’t have any effect on them. Getting upset and stressing myself out wasn’t helping anyone.
The reality is that the doors to the exhibit hall are going to open on time regardless of almost anything else. Hurricane Katrina being one of the very few exceptions I’ve ever heard of. So I decided to take a different approach.
First, I planned for the union costs in my budget. An obvious choice. Then I made a conscious effort to change my attitude about unions. Not my opinion, but my attitude. I just decided to not let it bother me. Then, I took a proactive approach.
As our exhibits grew in size, so did our labor requirements. Before long I would have killed for an $800 labor bill. We use four guys for 12 to 16 hours depending on the city. (Another blog for another day). A slow crew can take as long as 16 hours to set the exhibit. 12 hours is considered a fast set although a CSI crew in Anaheim once set it in 9 hours.
I help where I can of course but I make sure I don’t do so much as to act as a fifth man. I learned early on that when I did the work of a fifth man, the four I hired did the work of three. It’s the new math. Besides, supervising the install of my exhibit helps insure it goes up the way I want and, in the end, saves time.
I also give the guys a lot of leeway when it comes to breaks and retrieving tools, ladders etc. (One way to avoid the tool retrieval issue is to have all the tools you need with you. Another blog for another day) My complaining about them taking too long only exacerbates the issue. I make sure I know who the lead man on the crew and that I remember his name. If I really feel like one of the guys is a problem I talk to the lead guy.
Finally, I decided to kill them with kindness. I bring in a cooler with water and drinks on ice and tell them to help themselves. I also order pizza delivered with whatever toppings they want for their lunch.
Now I know what you’re thinking. If the cost of labor bothers you so much, why do you go to the added expense of buying them lunch? Well I’ll tell you why. First, most crews take a 30 minute lunch break which doesn’t leave a lot of time for me to go out and find lunch for myself much less eat it. Second, the guys eat in the booth so they don’t come straggling back late. And third, I’ve never seen anyone else do it. And neither did most of the crews I had. Whatever your work ethic is, when your boss buys you lunch it’s going to get better. For a four man crew and myself I typically buy three pizzas. Figure $15.00 a pop puts you at $45.00. Add the drinks and you’re talking maybe another $15.00. So $60.00 and I’ve fed my crew. Let’s round it off to an even $100.00 just for the sake of argument.
Most city rates are over $75.00 an hour per man and some go much higher. Go into overtime or double time and we’re talking real money on a 12 to 16 hour set. Spending the pizza and drink money can cut an hour or more off that time, per man, easily paying for itself several times over. I also have a crew who is more careful with my exhibit property.
Every crew I’ve purchased lunch for has not only been verbally appreciative, but has also been visibly more productive. Saving time on the install does more than just save money. After the crew is done I still have a full day of putting swag away, setting up my sound system, wiping down the booth, hiding wires and a million other tasks. The sooner the crew is done the sooner I can get to work on the rest.
I’ m still not a fan of unions, their regulations or the overpriced labor. But by taking a different approach I’m able to make the best of it.
So, my advice when it comes labor unions is to find a way to work with and/or around them. They aren’t going away and trying to fight them will only cause you larger issues.
