Hey Unions, How About This: You Get A Much Bigger Percentage Of Nothing!

Good riddance, and hopefully a strong sign of things to come:

Conventions Say Good Riddance to Chicago Over Costs and Union Work Rules

Major conventions are ditching Chicago over outrageous costs for McCormick Place electricians. Please consider High costs drive major trade show out of Chicago.

Chicago ditched. Tens of thousands of outsiders say it's too expensive to spend their money here; $52 million would have been pumped into our economy by some 28,000 visitors. Instead, a major trade show says it's leaving Chicago behind for good.

This week, CBS 2 reported on outrage over the hundred dollar case of Pepsi. Exhibitors feeling ripped off. Threatening not to come back.

Now, it's happened. McCormick Place electricians were the straw that broke the camel's back for one Chicagoan who says he reluctantly said "no" to bringing his convention back home.

The Tribune reports the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, which held its annual meeting at McCormick Place for the first time in April, is taking its 2012 show to Las Vegas instead.

Healthcare Information and Management Systems CEO Steve Lieber told CBS2 it's all because of the electricians.

"Our costs were about $200,000 more," said Lieber. "So it went from $40,000 to $240,000 for the electrical work alone."

The city got the word Wednesday that the huge medical convention wouldn't return. They're also sweating out a decision by an even bigger show.

The International Plastics Showcase has been in Chicago since 1971, but now a spokesman says: "We are looking at other options."

Like Orlando. Though the medical trade group says it's deeper than union versus non-union towns.

"It was the number of hours and the number of people it took to do the identical job," Lieber said.

Two months ago, McCormick Place quietly fired two-thirds of its electricians, promising to bring back only the best, and only when they're needed; trying to change the work rules and work ethic that's already cost Chicago tens of millions of dollars.

The article says the issue is not unions but rather "work rules".

Excuse me but who sets those work rules? Mickey Mouse?

If it takes 3 times as many workers to get the job done in Chicago then union rules are more than likely the culprit.

Not to fear, I have the perfect solution: raise property taxes and sales taxes to paper over falling revenues. That may sound preposterous but sadly that is just how Chicago and Cook county think...