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JimH wrote:
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Dan Krueger wrote:
Harry Krause wrote:
Don White wrote:

The local boat show starts at noon today and runs through Sunday.
Newspaper says admission fee has jumped to $ 10.00. Is it just
me..or
does that seem a bit excessive?
http://www.masterpromotions.ca/halif...-boat-show.asp


It should be free.

It should be free but many of these shows are run by large exhibition
companies employing union labor at exorbitant rates. Traffic control,
ticket sales, security, etc. are all union controlled.

I have attended shows where you would have to literally pay a union
electrician $50 to plug in your extension cord. Plug it in yourself
and
you would be charged the same $50. Simple forklift delivery of your
booth materials cost hundreds. Even worse, they would put their hand
out looking for a tip while they are on the clock. Pretty sad.

Check your bill. That simple forklift delivery was almost certainly
billed to you by the show organizers, not directly by the union. The
difference in the wage paid to a union fork lift operator (maybe $10
for a 15-minute delivery) and an illegal alien doing the same job
(maybe $1.50 for a 15-minute delivery) isn't going to run the bill up
to "hundreds of dollars". If the bill is hundreds of dollars, it's the
show organizers or the display rental company that is profiting. Our
local boat show rentals include basic 15-amp power to the booth and
there is no restriction about plugging in you own
display------------however, if you need more power than 15 amps or
require specialized routing of wires etc there would be additional
charges and it isn't unreasonable to pay a $50 minimum for a skilled
electrician.

Or is it actually your opinion that the difference between a $15/hr
unionized concession stand worker (sellling $600 worth of junk food
with a gross margin of over $500 per hour) and a $5.75/hr "guest
worker" making almost the same sales- but not quite because the mental
translation from Spanish to English takes a moment to do- would mean
that everybody should be able to get into the show free? Are you really
saying that the only reason there's an admission charge at all is to
cover the difference in cost between workers smart enough to engage in
collective bargaining with management and workers dumb enough or
desperate enough to be exploited?

You may be on to something. Let's kick out the unions everywhere. No
more admission fees to state fairs, amusement parks, movie theaters,
concerts, plays, boat shows, home shows, car shows, etc. I had no idea
that the only reason admission to all forms of entertainment isn't
completely complimentary was due to the difference between a living
wage and a slave wage. Let them eat stale nachos, I wanna get in free.
:-)

My experience with setting up for boat shows has been that it is the
display companies, not the union laborers, who rape and pillage.
Example: A few shows back I arrived at the booth to find a very, very
short table had been delivered. We had ordered a table with 40" legs so
that one can either stand or sit behind it at various points during the
day. I was looking at something that was too short to sit behind with a
standard chair- let alone a stool- and would have placed our display
far too low for comfortable viewing by show patrons. I went to the show
office and complained, where I was informed that the table delivered to
the booth was exactly what the publisher had requested. It wasn't of
course, but any time there's a monopoly in place- as at a trade show-
you can argue until you are three shades of blue in the face and get
nowhere. I had to agree to pay over $100 to have the table removed and
the proper table delivered, and had to sign a purchase agreement for
that fee at the conclusion of the discussion.

What burned my butt, big time, was when one of the company
representatives showed up at the booth and asked, "Is this the place
that needs the 40-inch table?" When I said yes, the company
representative turned the little table on its side, *extended the
telescoping legs to make it 40-inches high* (!) and said, "Have a nice
show!" No union employee in sight, just an asshole who could have told
me, when I complained, that the legs were adjustable.

When the next show came around, I went out to IKEA and bought a table,
two chairs,
a carpet, etc for just about what Rape and Pillage Display wanted for a
short term rental. We just used that gear for the 4th time in January-
so I guess I have to thank that free enterprise crook who screwed me
out of the hundred bucks for the leg adjustment. That
ripoff incident inspired me to save some money- and the $100 the
company virtually stole from me has cost that outfit close to $1000 in
lost revenue so far.

But you're right about at least one thing if not more. I'm sure the
show display rental companies would be able to keep a bit more of their
unconscionable fees if they could hire a greater number of illegal,
unqualfied, or desperate workers. It's easy for any company or
organization charging obscene prices to blame it on "the unions"- but
in reality boat show display pricing is more the result of absurd
profiteering in a monopolized market.


Welcome back to the darkside Chuck. We knew you would come back. ;-)


Dark side?

I thought we were discussing whether extortionary pricing for boat show
display and setup services was a result of union laborers earning $5-10
an hour more than the guys sent out from rent-the-homeless agencies vs.
display companies charging 5, 10, or 15 times their actual costs (union
or not) for goods and services supplied? :-)

And here I thought you went on a tangent about unions and the market.
Silly me. ;-)