Sep. 8--CHICAGO--Five years ago, major trade shows were threatening to leave Chicago, fueling a political urgency for work-rule changes much like the one that exists now in Philadelphia. 

And troubles linger at the nation's convention and trade-show capital: McCormick Place will soon get a new chief executive because the old one, a former aide to the Illinois governor, was indicted last spring on federal racketeering charges related to campaign funding. 

Yet Chicago is being held up as an example of how Philadelphia can shed its reputation as a hostile convention town, with complaints about high labor costs and union hassles that are driving business out. 

The big difference? 

Inside McCormick Place, the nation's biggest convention center, unions work more harmoniously, with little of the disruption that annoys trade-show exhibitors. 

"You used to feel like, 'Oops, if I pick up the screwdriver, the steward will be right over.' It's not like that anymore," one major exhibitor, Mark Wiktorski of Liberty Precision Industries, a New York machine tool company, said last week. His trade-show booth was one of 4,000 being set up for Chicago's most labor-intensive convention of the year, the International Manufacturing Technology Show, which opened Wednesday. 

"A lot of things here in Chicago labor, if they tell you they'll do it, it's as good as gold," said Albert Faul, director of labor relations at McCormick Place, where six unions set up conventions. 

"[But] 90 percent of what is agreed to is not in writing." People trust each other to work together, union and building officials said. 

Life at McCormick Place was not always as serene. 

The organizers of the shows, as well as their participating exhibitors, once complained about expensive hotel rooms, inadequate transportation, and, above all, high labor costs and union hassles. 

But after implementing landmark changes about which unions do what work, and creating new overtime rules, McCormick Place now receives among the highest marks in the industry for its flexible and professional union workforce. 

"There was an air of cooperation by all the union guys who came up yesterday," said Carl Hultquist, a first-time exhibitor at the Chicago giant machine manufacturing show, which included the delivery of 5,000 truckloads of freight. "It was obvious someone has sat them down." 

It is hardly surprising, then, that Chicago's labor rules figured prominently in the proposal Mayor Street presented last week that aims to improve work issues at the Convention Center and, in turn, persuade convention planners and exhibitors to come back to Philadelphia. 

Chicago's labor system works essentially the way Philadelphia's does now: A show organizer hires private contractors to oversee the booth setup for the show's exhibitors. The contractors, in turn, hire union labor, with whom they hold collective bargaining agreements. 

A closer look at the Chicago system suggests several reasons why it works better. One is that the building's top staff is more experienced in the trade-show world. Tom Mobley, general manager of McCormick Place, previously ran convention centers in Baltimore, Jacksonville and Denver. For years, Philadelphia has not had anyone in a comparable position, but is seeking such an executive now. 

But perhaps the most intangible difference is the Chicago workforce itself. 

Unlike Philadelphia's, Chicago's trade unions are highly experienced in the trade-show world. That is because Chicago has been a bigger player in the convention industry for longer, and because the sheer size of McCormick Place -- five times larger than the Convention Center and still growing -- means the volume of work is much greater. 

"People dedicate their life careers to this. They're not out building tract houses next week. They're here," Mobley said. 

That experience has played an important role in the willingness of Chicago union leaders to agree to work-rule changes, such as new overtime policies, that sometimes hurt their members. 

"It was a double-edged sword. If we didn't do something, the shows were threatening to pull out," said Frank Libby, assistant to the president of the Chicago and Northeast Illinois District Council of Carpenters. "Some paycheck," he said, "is better than no paycheck." 

Two changes significantly reduced "the hassle factor," Mobley said. 

First, one employee from each trade-show exhibit was given the right to set up and tear down his own booth, as long as the booth was 300 square feet or smaller. 

As part of that change, that employee for the first time was allowed to use screwdrivers, pliers or other hand tools -- no power tools -- to help erect the booth. 

Philadelphia's proposed agreement, which is opposed by only one union, the carpenters, would allow exhibitors those same rights. 

The second major change at McCormick Place was that two unions were melded into one group. Now a decorator can do a carpenter's job, and vice versa, but with each union maintaining its identity. In practice, they do not share the work equally but can help complete the other person's tasks. 

That is similar to the plan backed by Street to develop three "composite crews" of two unions each. 

In Chicago's case, the single workforce consists of carpenters and decorators, the two unions responsible for setting up most exhibitors' trade-show booths. Before the change became effective in the spring of 1999, carpenters would build the booth structure, but have to stop and wait for decorators to "dress" the booths before they could finish. 

The waiting, which sometimes lasted hours because decorators were few in number, translated into high costs for exhibitors. Under the new rules, workers from either union could perform any of the work. 

The unified workforce has saved exhibitors money, but it has not been praised universally. 

"Sure, it's unified to a point," said Jack Halenkamp, corporate accounts manager for the Mazak Corp., one of the largest exhibitors at this week's machine manufacturing show. "But you still have somebody who is a good carpenter who can't hang a sign to save his life." 

Mike Fitzpatrick, the president of the trade-show division for Local 17, the decorators union, said his members were "finding our identity diluted so much," since they were no longer performing traditional tasks. 

To assure that each union got its fair share of work, McCormick Place spent six months assessing how much work each union did building and tearing down booths. The result showed that for every 100 hours of work, decorators did just 41/2 hours. 

The resulting deal was that decorators would work 4.5 percent of the total hours to set up and take down booths. 

But Fitzpatrick, whose union is an affiliate of the United Steelworkers union, said there was no way for him to know that the decorators were being paid their fair share. That task falls to Faul, the labor relations director and the only person privy to how much competing contractors charge for labor. 

"They're using my guys as grunts, as warm bodies to cover the ratio," Fitzpatrick said. 

Libby, of the carpenters union, said: "I'm not going to say we don't fight anymore... . But we saw ourselves losing market share, just like Philadelphia, and we knew we had to do something." 

Fitzpatrick said, "It's a system that works and doesn't work." 

Still, he said, "it's better than the alternative -- shows threatening to leave." 

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(c) 2002, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.