Calif Bill wrote:


Maybe in Seattle, you can plug in your TV to the NEMA 15 amp circuit. But
in Chicago and New York and Washing DC, you have to have the "Union
Electrician" plug in that plug. The same plug you plug in all the time at
home, when you want to hook up your TV, or run an electric drill. I can see
the "Union Electrician" to run the circuit to your booth, but not to plug in
a standard electrical cord. We had that problem at a couple of customers
years ago. They had to have the "Union Electrician" come up to plug in our
o'scope. And you wonder why people move their companies from those places?

You might want to check and see whether it's really "union rules" or
the local fire code that requires a licensed electrician to make the
electrical connections in a booth at a trade show. The last thing
anybody would want to see would be fire breaking out in a building
filled with people at any sort of show. Some of the beat-up junk stuff
that I'm sure at least a few folks want to plug in wouldn't pass a
cursory inspection. It may not be the "plugging in" that's the issue.
It may be that while connevting the plug the electrician is going to
make sure that the insulation isn't peeling away, the conctacts aren't
all burned up from previous arcing, etc.

And even so, when the show sponsor sends you a bill for $100 for
electrical connection be very aware that the union electrician is only
earning a tiny fraction of that. Let's say the union electrician earns
$50 an hour, plus benefits, so his time actually costs the show sponsor
maybe $70 an hour. If that electrician can work his way down an aisle
and connect 10 exhibitors in an hour, the cost to the employer is $7
per connection.
My entire point is that marking that $7 cost up to $100 and then
blaming the high fee on "the union" is just silly. Let's say that the
show coordinators could hire a quick and dirty backyard electrician
with a questionable "green card" for $35 an hour, all in all done. Half
the cost of union labor. Now the cost of making each connection is only
$3.50, rather than $7........In reality the service wouldn't be priced
at $96.50 with the same $93 markup that applied to the $100 billing,
the electrical service would still be priced at $100 and the markup
would be $96.50 instead of $93.

In some cases, such as the "plug in my booth" example, the markup from
the contracting company is such an enormous percentage of the bill that
doubling, halving, or even removing the true labor cost entirely
wouldn't affect profitability by all that much.