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Peter Callaghan is a local columnist. He’s covered the
statehouse and state politics since 1981. Before joining The News
Tribune in 1985, the Stadium High grad worked for newspapers in Everett
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Peter
Joe Turner has covered state government and transportation
issues since 1990. Since the Bellarmine grad’s arrival in the newsroom
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Federal Way City Hall and the Pierce and King county governments. Email Joe
David Wickert covers Pierce County government. Before coming to
The News Tribune in 1998, he covered local government for newspapers in
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Ian Demsky is a general assignment reporter who specializes in
database-driven reporting. He's been at the News Tribune since 2007 and has
previously worked in Nashville, Tenn. and Portland, Ore. When he's not at
work, he enjoys hiking and science fiction. Email Ian
Les Blumenthal has been covering Washington, D.C. for The News
Tribune since 1990, focusing on issues and politicians involving the
state. Before joining The News Tribune, he spent 13 years working for
The Associated Press in Seattle, Illinois and Washington, D.C. Email Les
John Henrikson is a local news editor who oversees political coverage. He's worked as a journalist in the
Northwest for 19 years, supervising coverage and reporting on local and
state government, the environment and growth. Email John
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The Hillary Clinton campaign pulled the plug on its plan to use the Tacoma Convention Center for tomorrow’s Tacoma visit, and was scrambling this morning to find a new location.
That’s the word from Ron Geier, owner of Tacoma-based Northwest Staging and Sound. According to Geier, the dust-up centers around union issues.
Clinton’s campaign hired Geier’s company to do the lighting, sound, piping and drapes for Clinton’s visit. It was a logical choice for a couple of reasons: His company has lots of experience doing political jobs. It’s worked on events for Barack Obama, and John Edwards, and Gov. Chris Gregoire’s town hall meetings.
Perhaps just as important, his shop is part of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The union has endorsed Clinton.
“They’re certainly not going to use non-union stage employees,” Geier said.
But that’s what the staff at the convention center wanted them to do, Geier said.
Convention center officials told Clinton’s campaign workers that the convention center had in-house audio visual people who could do the work that Geier’s company was planning to do, and the the in-house people were unionized.
When Geier heard this, he told the Clinton campaign that the convention center actually contracts with a Seattle company, The AV Factory, and that the company is non-union. The Clinton people went back to the convention center, and that’s when the talks went south.
Geier said he met with convention center officials and told them that Clinton’s campaign wanted his company to work the event. A convention center official replied, “That’s not going to happen,” Geier said.
So the Clinton campaign started looking — quickly — to find a new venue.
Word is they may end up at the Longshoreman’s Hall at the University of Washington Tacoma.
I’ve got calls in to the convention center general manager and a Clinton campaign worker to hear what they have to say.
UPDATE:
David Bobo, general manager of the convention center, said his staff worked late into the night Wednesday trying to put together the Friday morning event before learning that Clinton's campaign wanted everyone working on the event to be union.
Many of the convention center workers are unionized, Bobo said, but he told the Clinton campaign that some contractors are not, including the AV Factory employees.
Given more time, it would have been possible to let Geier's company or another company come into the building and do the work. But the exhibition hall is an "acoustical nightmare" and the AV Factory has the most experience with that particular space, Bobo said.
"We had to make sure it was right for a visit from a presidential candidate," he said.
Bobo said Geier's company does great work, and he's got no problem with them. But given the time constraints and all the variables, he needed the AV Factory to do the sound on this one.
Or not, as it turned out.
COMMENTS:
How many people decided that lying to a presidential candidate about the union status of the workers hired to stage a campaign stop was a good idea? One? Two? Ten? Clinton is endorsed by this union and this could have turned into something very messy with the City of Tacoma being dragged through the mud.
And why does our Convention Center hire Seattle-based non-union shops anyways?
What other kinds of protectionist cronyism is going on at city owned facilities? And how many other unions are being shut out by City Management? The stagehands union works at the city owned Broadway Center, but not at the convention center or the Tacoma Dome. Who's making those decisions and why are they not being called on the carpet for this? What elected official is at risk of losing his job for sanctioning this? Where's the accountability?
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