[gangbox] "UNION ORGANIZING MUST BE SEEN PRIMARILY AS A BUSINESS TRANSACTION"

"UNION ORGANIZING MUST BE SEEN PRIMARILY AS A BUSINESS
TRANSACTION"....the long slow decay of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters into a company union...

By Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter

Recently, the international office of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners of America held a golf junket with a number of
contractors in beautiful Palm Springs, California.

Like all such union boss-employer vacation trips, this one was
brilliantly disguised as a business meeting.

In this case, the golf outing was called the UBC Leadership
Conferences. The attendees at this conference were officials of the
UBCJA, along with contractors, union and scab alike, from the interior
systems, pile driving, machinery rigging and floorlaying industries.

Now, union bosses going on golf junkets with management is disturbing
enough for any good unionist, and should, quite appropriately, royally
piss off all the 390,000 union carpenters in America and Canada who's
hard earned dues money sponsored this event...that is, the suckers who
paid for a party that they were very pointedly NOT invited to attend.

What's worse is what the businesspeople and union officials talked
about after the 18th hole.

Basically, Douglass J. "Cash" McCarron, the general president of the
UBCJA, and the other Carpenters Union officials told the employers that
the union's priorities were productivity, competitiveness and helping
the signatory contractors market their services.

To translate that into plain English..."productivity" means having less
carpenters, working harder, for less hours, for less pay, so the
contractors and the developers and the mortgage bankers can make more
money.

And "competitiveness"means a race to the bottom with non union
carpenters, and helping "our good union contractors" extract every last
drop of blood, sweat and tears from our members, while pushing them to
work at the outer limits of human endurance.

Of course, there was no radical talk of any kind of union ideals of
solidarity, union members looking out for their brothers and sisters,
shorter work days, equal distribution of work hours, earlier
retirements, or making union carpenters jobs easier and less straining
on our bones and joints.

That kind of thing just wouldn't do.....especially at a "union"
conference where one of the workshops was run by A UNION BUSTING
ATTORNEY.

Yes, folks, you read right, an anti union lawyer, one Mark Breslin, a
man who proudly proclaims himself as a "Management Son of a Bitch", a
man who earns his fees by helping contractors lock out union members,
breaking strikes and decertifying unions, was a featured speaker at
this event. Breslin actually was the main speaker at all four trade
segments of the conference - interior systems, millwright, florlaying
and pile driving, so it's obvious that the union was playing up him and
his rancid ideology..

Breslin was quoted, approvingly, in the July/August 2003 issue of "The
Carpenter" (the UBCJA's bimonthly propaganda magazine) as saying that
"...union organizing must be seen primarily as a business transaction.
It's not about 'doing the right thing', 'carrying on the American Way',
or any other philosophical issues. Simply put, it's about self
preservation and making money. It has to make financial sense for
contractors to use union labor". The editors approvingly described his
cynical diatribe as an "ice water wake up call".

Sadly enough, the views of this professional strikebreaker are damned
near identical to those of the UBCJA's international leadership.

Of course, the fact that a scabherder lawyer, a strikebreaker in a
suit, would even be allowed to walk in the door at a union conference,
let alone run a workshop and make a speech, says alot about what our
union has degenerated into these days.

Another theme of this conference was the alleged "shortage of skilled
labor" in the construction industry.

Carpenters Union General President "Cash" McCarron said that "The
industry has identified the shortage of skilled labor as the No. 1
issue to be solved". McCarron, incredibly, claimed that the industry
will need to take in 1.6 million more workers in the next 5 years...

"Cash" also stated that, supposedly, there is a big problem with the
union "...sending someone with the wrong skills or no training to a
contractors....it does happen..and everyone here knows it".

The reality is, there is no "problem" with unskilled carpenters being
dispatched out of the hall.

The REAL problem is that contractors can refuse to hire carpenters for
any reason, or no reason at all.

So, a perfectly skilled person might show up on a jobsite, but not get
hired because they are female, or a Black male, or a Latino male, or,
God help them, a Black or Latina woman, or, they are a White male, but
they're over 50 years old, and the boss thinks they will work "too
slow".

Or, if a carpenter gets sent out as a shop steward, and actually tries
to make the employer live up to the agreement, or if they're a regular
worker, and refuses to tolerate abuse, or, in many cases, if they
merely ask to be paid the benefits and pay that the agreement says they
should get, they'll get fired too.

Worse yet, many times a carpenter will lose his/her job because they
don't meet some arbitrary production quota that the boss imposed. They
might be giving 100% every day..but the boss still wants his 100
boards.

Even though our union's constitution, the bylaws in most of our
District Councils, Regional Councils and locals, and most of our
agreements strictly prohibit production quotas, people get illegally
fired for not meeting these prohibited production quotas every day.

The real "problem" is that the union has been letting the bosses get
away with these abuses for years.

Beyond that, in the real world, the one that "Cash" McCarron's members
live and work in, there is no "shortage of skilled labor".

This business can't provide full time work for most of the 6 million
people already in the industry.. God help us if another 1,600,000 folks
come in the business looking for work..that means less hours for
everybody. In fact, there's a chronic SURPLUS of labor in the industry,
a fact that any union carpenter waiting at home for a call from the out
of work list, or any non union carpenter shaping up for a job on the
corner or in the parking lot of a Home Depot, can testify to.

Basically, for most of the 6 million men and women in the construction
industry, and in particular for the roughly 2 millon carpenters in this
business in this country, there's less work to go around, and longer
and longer periods of unemployment between jobs.

In part, this chronic underemployment is caused by the amazing
technological improvements in this business, and the fact that, despite
the awesome increase in carpenter productivity, our workday hasn't been
shortened in about 100 years. Most carpenters still work 8 hours a day
(and many work longer days than that), but we produce more in 8 hours
today than we did in 40 hours a half century ago.

This is thanks to innovations like the nailgun, the shotgun, the
skilsaw, the screwgun, the sizzor lift, the laser level, and all the
prefabricated systems that install so quickly and easily. Not to
mention how things like the cellphone and the fax machine have made
getting answers from the architect and the owner a much faster process
than ever before.

At this very conference, non union machinery rigging contractor Mike
Falk, owner of Falk PLI Engineering and Surveying in Portage, Indiana,
spoke about a new laser tracker device that he used to do a layout job
that normally takes 16 hours in just 16 minutes.

Now, of course, any instrument that eliminates that many hours of
millwright work is a bad thing for our union, and for the brothers and
sisters in the machinery rigging industry.. But, Falk's efforts to
eliminate work for millwrights was greeted so enthusiastically by UBCJA
officers at the conference that he actually signed a union agreement on
the spot.

In this kind of climate, where our brothers and sisters are doing more
work, in less time, should the union really be talking about bringing
MORE members into the union?

But, that's what the contractors want..so that's what "Cash" McCarron
wants to give them.

Basically, the bosses want to have a continuing game of musical
chars..that is, they want a whole bunch of members chasing after a few
jobs.

When they need a lot of labor, they want it right away, and they want
to be able to dispose of those workers the minute they are done with
them.

And, when jobs are short, they want to be able to play favorites..and
make sure that the few carpenters with steady jobs know that there's a
whole bunch of guys and girls out on the street who could replace them
at a moment's notice.

A situation like that is a contractor's heaven..and a construction
worker's hell.

Worse yet, the UBCJA's international leadership has a new program to
flood the membership with jobless workers..it's called "Helmets to
Hardhats".

This program, which is officially known as the "Center for Military
Recruitment, Asessment and Veterans Employment", and is run jointly by
the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO and the
US Department of Defense, is designed to channel recently discharged
soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines into the apprenticeship programs
of the construction unions.

Now, providing jobs for veterans is very important..although, honestly,
I always thought that providing jobs for ex servicepeople was the
responsibility of the federal government and the Postal Service, rather
than the building trades.

But, apparently, this program is being used to add more members to the
already full out of work lists of the building trades..and to fill our
apprentice schools with even more unemployed young men and women.

And it could get worse..every year, the military discharges upwards of
300,000 young men and women, many of whom were Army Engineers or Navy
Seabees..and many of whom could be coming to the bottom of an out of
work list near you.

Instead of the feds rewarding these brothers and sisters who risked
their lives for this country with a steady federal civil service jobs,
they want to dump them into that swamp of permanent underemployment
known as the building trades, and use them to flood our industry with
excess labor.

And, for those of us already in the business who aren't getting enough
work, the Helmets to Hardhats program has a solution..enlist.

The UBCJA and the DoD are encouraging carpenters to join the engineer
units of the Army Reserve and the seabee units of the Navy Reserves.

Which, in the present high state of wartime mobilization, basically
means enlisting in the active duty armed forces..and getting shipped
off to the oil fields of Iraq, or the swamps of Liberia, or or the
mountains of Afghanistan, or the jungles of the Philippines, or the
mountains of Bosnia Herznegovena or to whatever other country that Bush
has decided to invade.

Yes, folks, they can't get you a steady job on a jobsite over here...so
they'll put you in fatigues and a flak jacket and send you over to the
oil fields of Iraq, with an M 16 in one hand and an E tool in the
other.

The sad thing is..the UBCJA heirarchy doesn't really have a problem
with that...

Hell, the Carpenters Union's second largest affiliate, the 19,000
member New York District Council of Carpenters, along with the NYC
Building Trades Council actually had the embarrasing distinction of
organizing the largest pro war rally in the country back in April down
at Ground Zero.

Of course, to show you just how unpopular that war was (and just how
out of step the NYDCofC leadership were with the mainstream of New York
City's working class), only about 15,000 folks showed up..

Typically, upwards of 40,000 construction workers attend Building
Trades Council rallies around legitimate labor issues..but only 15,000
showed up for this one..

A lot of the folks at this pro war rally weren't even construction
workers, but were actually New York City firemen or family members of
office workers who died in the World Trade Center bombing.

By contrast, over 500,000 New Yorkers marched AGAINST the war just a
few weeks before the pro war rally.

Actually, every weekend during the war, there were huge anti war
rallies, (including an anti war rally by members of the city's African
American and Muslim communities held in this writer's neighborhood,
Harlem), and there were also several after work anti war rallies held
as well.

Almost all of those rallies were attended by 20,000+ protesters..and
many were closer to 100,000 people.

But hey, that's what happens when a union's leaders let the employers
do their thinking for them.

And that's exactly what Doug McCarron and his team have been doing
since the came in office in 1995.

Of course, the UBCJA's leadership has been pro contractor ever since
Carpenters Union founder, father of Labor Day, and utopian socialist,
Peter J. McGuire, was ousted from his secretary treasurer post by right
wing and gangster connected union officials way back in 1901.

But, over the years, the union did try and look out for it's membership
as well, (or at least SOME of the members) and tried to make our wages
as high, our workrules as strong, benefits as good, our workdays as
short and our pensions as generous as the contractors would permit.

Unfortunately, almost a century of collaberation with the contractors
made the union totally unprepared to fight the wave of deunionization
that hit our industry in the 1970's.

As early as the 1950's, the Carpenters Union had allowed the
residential construction field to go non union without a fight. The
UBCJA's leaders were not prepared to organize a fightback against the
deunionization of that vast segment of the industry.

This was largely due to the fact that Carpenters Union leaders were
uncomfortable with the idea of struggling against the contractors..

This was because they'd been set in a "labor management partnership"
mentality for so long, and they didn't want to offend the signatory
contractors by organizing a mass movement of workers.

Instead, they offered givebacks and concessions, which only made things
worse..contractors took the givebacks..and went nonunion anyway.

Worse yet, some of these non union contractors had banded together as
early as the 1950s, into a group called the Associated Builders and
Contractors. ABC's goal was to help these non union outfits penetrate
into the core of unionized construction, Davis Bacon prevailing wage
work for federal, state and local government agencies.

By the 1980's, the ABC had suceeded in opening that market to the rat
contractors, and, in many areas, completely taking over Davis Bacon
work..and, in a number of states, completely repealing the Davis Bacon
laws as well.

Meanwhile, some of the leading Wall Street-connected corporations in
America, (folks like Exxon, US Steel, Mobil, Citibank, GM and the other
corporate bigtimers) had banded together in an association dedicated to
reducing construction labor costs and busting the building trades
unions.

This was originally known by the somewhat awkward handle of the
Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable..but ultimately came to be
called the Business Roundtable.

The Roundtable was set up to deunionize the construction of office
buildings, factories, oil refineries, steel mills and other major
construction projects of the big corporations.

The Business Roundtable was sucessful in introducing the open shop (or
"merit shop", to use their term) to industrial and heavy commercial
construction. This was particularly true in the oil industry, where
most of the maintenance work on oil refineries is done by rat
contractors..also, most of the new steel mills built in this country
over the past 20 years were largely constructed by scabs.

The UBCJA was unable to organize any kind of consistant resistance to
this wave of open shop attacks, except for allowing the dwindling
number of signatory contractors to get giveback after giveback after
giveback. This caused the union to implode....shrinking from 750,000
members in 1970 to barely 390,000 active carpenters in the union today.
At one point, in 1995, the UBCJA only had 320,000 active members.

That's how McCarron and his crew came to power. The union was in
crisis, and "Cash" had a solution..he called it "restructuring".

Basically, that involved stripping carpenters of their right to elect
BAs and vote on contracts, merging local unions and District Councils
into vast area-wide locals and Regional Councils that often covered
whole states, or even several states.

This was coupled with an organizing program that, for the most part,
involved signing substandard contracts and signing up large numbers of
non union carpenters into locals that didn't have enough work even for
their existing members.

Restructuring also involved something called "portability". That is,
allowing contractors to take their company men from job to job, and
only have to hire from the out of work list if they feel like it.
Basically, it means some guys work every day..while most carpenters sit
home waiting for the phone to ring, and then only get a few days of
work before they go back to the bottom of the out of work list.

Increasingly, restucturing has also meant allowing contractors to use
carpenters to perform other trades work. This has reached it's low
point in the concrete industry in Los Angeles (where McCarron got his
start running the now disbanded Los Angeles District Council of
Carpenters).

In LA, heavy construction and tilt up contractors are allowed to use
carpenters to do operating engineer, cement mason, ironworker, laborer
and teamster work in addition to their regular jobs.

Basically, it means letting the boss make one person do 6 people's jobs
for one check.

The UBCJA actually pulled out of the AFL-CIO back in 2001 for the
explicit purpose of allowing the Carpenters Union to steal other trades
work without fear of fines or sanctions from the federation.

Yes, brothers and sisters...this is the new face of the Carpenters
Union..

This is corporate unionism.

But, what do I mean when I say "corporate unionism"?

Let me explain.

Almost every American union is governed by an ideology called "Business
Unionism".

That means, the union's leaders believe that the function of labor
organizations is to build a "partnership" between union officials and
management.

Now, of course, the fact is, the reason we have unions in the first
place is that there's an innate conflict between workers and
businesspeople under the capitalist system. If there really was such a
thing as "labor management partnership" we wouldn't need unions in the
first place!!!

We do the work, and they keep the money that our labor generates, with
us only getting back a small portion of what we produced in the form of
wages.

This is especially true in construction...typically, carpenters add a
couple hundred dollars per hour to the value of the buildings we work
on..often as much as $ 250 bucks per hour on building construction..and
even more in specialized fields like woodwork or machinery rigging.

But, even the highest paid union carpenters only get $ 38 dollars an
hour in wages and $ 26 in benefits for every hour of our valuable
labor. And most carpenters make even less than that.

Not to mention the fact that we work in a very physically taxing, and
often quite dangerous, occupation, that literally takes years off of
our lives..

For example, the average White Amercan male will live to the age of 78.


The average carpenter will only see 62.

Which, conveniently enough, just happens to be the retirement age under
most UBCJA agreements.

So, there really is no basis for "cooperation" at all.

Despite that, business unionists have been imposing "labor management
partnership" on our unions, even as management has spent the last 50
years trying to destroy the labor movement.

Now, in McCarron's case, there's a new wrinkle..something that I call
"Corporate Unionism".

What's that?

Corporate unionism takes business unionism to it's logical conclusion.
The union gives up all pretense of being an independent workers
organization, and openly becomes a tool of the bosses. Basically, it's
company unionism.

The Service Employees International Union is an example of a corporate
union. They reunionized the building service industry by signing what
amount to sweetheart contracts with the cleaning contractors, and by
stripping their membership of many of their democratic rights within
the union.

Besides the SEIU, the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees
International Union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
Employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union,
and, to a large degree, the Laborers International Union of North
America, as well as, of course, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters
and Joiners of America are all unions that have taken the corporate
unionist road.

Folks like "Cash" McCarron say that we have no choice, our unions have
to either become company unions (or, as he likes to call them, "user
friendly unions") or completely dissapear.

And, admittedly, it's impossible to go back to the old style of
business unionism. That's just not going to fly anymore, those days are
gone forever.

But, there is an alternative to the brave new world of "user friendly"
company unionism.

And that's what I call "Revolutionary Unionism".

And what does that mean?

I've explained revolutionary unionism on the GANGBOX website before, at
:

http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/csu1.html

http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/downbylaw.html

http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/contract2001.html

and on the GANGBOX listserv, at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/22

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/954

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2466

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2659

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/4738

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/5059

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/7966

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/8649

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/8770

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/9027

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/11281

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/11583

and

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/12328

Revolutionary unionism means that a union recognizes the fundamental
conflict of interest between workers and bosses. Our labor enriches
them, and we only get a small fraction of what we produce..and, for as
long as we live under a capitalistic system, this will lead to conflict
between workers and bosses.

It is the job of a union to help workers organize ourselves to resist
the oppression and abuse of the bosses, and to fight for us getting as
large a share of the economic value we produce as possible. That is, as
high a wage, and as generous a benefit package, as we can make the
employers pay.

Beyond that, in an industry like ours, that's based on casual labor, we
have to fight for equal distribution of work, supplimental unemployment
benefits, a seniority system and job security.

Remember, the contractors want a divided workforce, with a few
priviliged guys working 3,000+ hours a year and getting OT every day,
and a large group of surplus workers, available at a moment's notice,
and only getting the barest scraps of work, often as little as 3 or 400
hours a year. With both groups of workers, the contractors want to be
able to fire them at a moment's notice, for any reason, or no reason at
all.

We should demand that there be a balance. We should not have a two tier
union, with some guys making six figures while others can barely pay
the mortgage.

Nobody should be working OT when people are jobless. And, the hours
should be distributed equally, so that everybody gets at least 1,000
hours a year. When there's no work, there should be a fund that pays
the jobless carpenters at least $ 405/wk over and above what they get
from UI. Also, all layoffs should be by seniority (last hired, first
laid off), and there should be an affirmative action system, with
quotas, so Black men, Latino men, and women of all colors get a fare
shot at employment in this industry.

To do that, we need a 90/10 hiring system. That is, a contractor would
be required to hire 90% of his/her workforce from the union out of work
list, and could only have 10% of his workers be company men. In
addition, contractors would be required to have a shop steward on every
job, no matter how short the job is or how few people are on the job,
and the company would also have a company-wide general shop steward. In
the case of companies that do jobs in more than one local area, they
would be required to hire at least 90% of their crew from the local
union where the job is located on out of town jobs.

Also, since technology is enabling the bosses to get more work out of
us in less time, we should move towards a shorter work day, a furlough
system and earlier retirements.

We should demand that all carpenters work a 7 hour day, and double time
for all OT. Also, in areas where more than 20% of carpenters are out of
work, anybody who has worked for a contractor for more than 6 months
straight should have to take a layoff, and sit home for at least 20
weeks while somebody else gets a shot. And, we should be able to retire
at 50 (just like the BAs do), with a $ 2,000 a month minimum pension,
with full family medical coverage.

Also, since we produce more, we need restrictions on output. That
means, an ironclad ban on production quotas...if a carpenter is doing
his/her job, he/she should NOT get laid off for "working too
slow"..nobody should be following behind our members counting how many
boards they put up.

Also, we need stricter safety rules, in particular on concrete
formwork, heavy construction, excavation, pile driving and foundation
work, scaffold work, machinery rigging, and any other jobs that require
a lot of high work, and unusually heavy lifting. These rules would
serve a double purpose..they'd make the job safer, and they'd require
the contractor to hire more carpenters.

Also, above all, we need to organize the 1.7 million non union
carpenters.

And I DON'T mean "organize" the way "Cash" McCarron does....signing up
excessive numbers of members, signing sweetheart "market retention"
contracts, and, above all, revolutionary unionist organizing is totally
opposed to this rancid idea of "competing with the non union".

Remember, they are as skilled as we are..and make a whole hell of a lot
less money.

Any "competetion" with non union carpenters will involve less union
carpenters working much harder for less hours for less pay.

Instead, we need to go back to the methods that Peter J. McGuire and
the other socialist, communist and anarchist carpenters who built this
union in the 1800's used..that is, the "trade movement".

Basically, a trade movment was an area-wide general strike of
carpenters, intended to force the General Contractors in an area to pay
union wages and have union conditions on their jobsites. There was no
"labor management cooperation" here..the union wages and conditions
were proclaimed unilaterally by the union in the Trade Rules in the
union's bylaws.

Those methods can still work today. "Cash" McCarron should know
this..because, in his old District Council, the Los Angeles District
Council of Carpenters, they had a trade movement-style areawide strike
of carpenters back in 1992..the famous Southern California Drywallers
strike.

2,000 non union carpenters, mostly Mexican immigrants, waged a 6 month
strike against the residential sheetrock subcontractors working in Los
Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernadino, Ventura and San Diego
counties.

Those carpenters fought hard (a common tactic involved armed pickup
truck caravans driving around to jobsites and chasing out the scabs -
and the cops who tried to protect the scabs), and they won.

Unfortunately, "Cash" McCarron forced the Mexican < jefes > ["chiefs" -
non union carpenter leadmen} who had organized the strike out of
leadership, and Doug's guys signed a really bad agreement for these
carpenters. They totally abandoned the San Diego carpenters - who ended
up in the Painters Union.

But, this proves that those type of tactics would still work today.

And that's exactly what the UBCJA should do to reorganize the industry.

We have one of the largest organizing departments in the
AFL-CIO..between the international and the various District Councils
and Regional Councils we have over 700 full time organizers.

I would propose that the organizers be sent out into the field, to the
areas where the union is totally non existant, and be set to the task
of recruiting local carpenter activists from the ranks of the non union
tradespeople. The goal would be to have these rank and filers set up
new locals, and, in some areas, new District Councils, and then use
those new unions to lead areawide strikes of carpenters.

McCarron's restructuring has disbanded many local unions, and even
District Councils..some whole states (like Vermont and Maine) don't
even have a local union..some other states (like Mississippi) have one
local that covers the entire state.

That's not right....we should have at least one District Council in
every state or Canadian province, and every county with more than
100,000 people should have at least one local union. As I pointed out
above, those locals in 100% open shop areas would be used as a base to
organize the non union carpenters.

In areas where the union is still relatively strong (New York, New
Jersey, New England, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana,
Northern California, Nevada, Washington State, Hawaii), the organizers
should work with volunteers recruited from the current membership, and
together seek out non union carpenters who could be persuaded to
organize their co workers. Then, they 'd organize areawide strikes of
non union carpenters in those areas, and seek to extend the wages and
benefits under the existing agreements to the newly organized
contractors.

The goal is not to "compete" with the non union but to create a
situation where anybody who wants to be a contractor either has to use
union labor, working under union conditions..or they won't be able to
be in this industry at all.

Of course, the Carpenters Union's structure would have to change
radically for it to be able to engage in this type of struggle...above
all, our union has to become more democratic.

I would propose stripping the general president's office of it's
present dictatorial powers, and investing it's authority in an
International Council of Delegates.

The International Council of Delegates would be composed of
representatives directly elected by a one member one vote ballot from
each District Council.

Those delegates would be rank and file carpenters, who hold no union
office, and who are journeylevel carpenters with at least 5 years in
the industry. They would serve a single, 3 year, non re electable term
of office, and would have to spend at least 3 years on their tools
before being eligible to run for office again.

While in office, they would be paid a weekly salary equivilant to 40
hours at full book carpenter scale in Washington DC Carpenters local
1110. Delegates who live more than 50 miles from Washington would be
accomidated, at the union's expense, in modest furnished studio
apartments within a short Metro or bus ride from the UBCJA
international headquarters at 101 Constitution Av.

The delegates would be the union's legislature or parliament. They
would have authority over all matters of union policy and would make
all strategic decisions on organizing and bargaining. They would
supervise the officers and staff of the international, and, if
necessary, would have the power to initiate impeachment proceedings
against any union official, including the general president.

The International Council of Delegates would also have the authority to
charter new local unions and District Councils, and to review, and, if
necessary, recommend revisions in, the bylaws of those locals and
District Councils.

The International Council of Delegates would also supervise the union's
public relations efforts, including "The Carpenter" magazine, the
http://www.carpenters.org website, and the union's lobbying efforts in
Washington, Ottawa, and the various state and provincal capitals.

The International Council of Delegates would also determine the
policies and supervise the work of the Organizing Department, the
Health and Safety Fund, the Education and Development Fund and the
International Training Center in Las Vegas.

There would also be an International Trial Committee, which would serve
as the judicial arm of the UBCJA.

It would be composed of 15 delegates representing the various regions
of the USA, 2 Canadian delegates and a Chair. These delegates would be
elected under the same rules as the delegates to the International
Council of Delegates, would earn the same salary, and would also have
the same 3 year term limit.

They would act as the appeal body for any carpenter brought up on
charges in a local union or District Council, would review any
irregularities in local union, District Council or international
elections, and would also serve as the trial court for any impeachment
case brought against a general officer by the International Council of
Delegates.

The UBCJA Executive Board would serve as the executive body of the
union, and would be composed of a general president, general
secretary-treasurer, general treasurer, executive vice president, vice
president for Canada, director of organizing, director of health and
safety, director of education, chair of the International Council of
Delegates, 15 US regional vice presidents and 2 Canadian regional vice
presidents.

The chair of the International Council of Delegates would be appointed
by a majority vote of the delegates to the International Council of
Delegates. All of the other general officers would be directly elected
by one member one vote secret ballot elections.

The general president, general secretary-treasurer, general treasurer,
executive vice president, director of organizing, director of health
and safety and director of education would be elected on an at large
basis. The vice president for Canada would be elected at large by the
Canadian members.

The 15 US regional vice presidents would be elected by the members in
the state or states they represent. The two Canadian vice presidents
would be elected by the members in the provinces they represent.

To be elegible for office, they would have to be carpenters with at
least 5 years in the trade. Presently, the constitution says that only
US citizens or Canadian subjects can serve as general officers...Due to
the huge number of immigrants in our craft, I would change that rule so
US resident aliens and Canadian landed immigrants would also be
elegible to run for office.

Any member who is able to get 100 union carpenters to sign a petition
would be eligible to run for any one of these international offices.

All of these officers would serve 3 year, non re electable terms of
office, would not be permitted to serve in that particular post more
than once, and would have to work on their tools for 3 years before
being elegible to run for another international office.

While in office, they would recieve a weekly salary equivilant to 40
hours wages at Washington DC Carpenters local 1110 scale. Those general
officers who's homes were more than 50 miles from the capital would be
allowed rent free use of a modest, furnished union-rented apartment in
Washington that was within a short Metro or bus ride of the general
office.

The general officers would serve under the direction of the
International Council of Delegates. The general officers main job would
be to carry out the policies and decisions of the delegates. And, as I
mentioned above, the delegates would have the authority to impeach
those general officers if necessary.

This structure that I outlined above, and, more importantly, the
policies that it would carry out, are night-and-day different than the
present Carpenters Union.

Now, of course, those same contractors who love Doug McCarron would
fight tooth and nail to protect the corporate unionist setup he has
created for their benefit.

And, of course, the UBCJA officers and staff would fight very hard to
protect the patronage jobs they've gotten from "Cash" McCarron.

And, the federal government, who also like McCarron a whole lot, would
also surely do their best to preserve the nightmare of corporate
unionism that has been imposed on us.

In other words, transforming the Carpenters Union into a revolutionary
union would be a very hard fight, against very long odds. But, it's
something that I think we have to do..unless we want our brotherhood to
totally degenerate into a company union.

Thats it for now.

Be union, work safe.


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