[gangbox] THE TWO SIDES OF THE CARPENTERS UNION

THE TWO SIDES OF THE CARPENTERS UNION, or, how can you call it a
"united brotherhood" if some guys work every day and others barely get
2 months work a year?

By Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter

As we stand about two months into the building season in New York City,
this town's 19,000 active union carpenters find themselves facing hard
times. The usual pickup in construction activity that happens around
April or so just didn't happen this year. Construction is the slowest
it's been since the September 11th bombing, hours worked by members of
the New York District Council of Carpenters are down 20% from last
year..and, that's saying something, because the Fall/Winter of 2001 and
all of 2002 were pretty slow.

Right now, about 2,700 carpenters are on the out of work list.

That's down substantially from the 6,000 brothers and sisters who were
on the bench over the winter, and the 4,000 who were out of work in the
early spring..but, it's still a pretty high number for the height of
the building season

Worse yet, underemployment is not equally shared in this business...

Almost everybody works less when times are slow...but, "slow" means
different things, depending on if you're a company man or a local man.

For the small minority of the NYDCofC membership who are fortunate to
have a steady job with a contractor (the "company men"), hard times
means that they aren't getting as much OT and as many Saturdays as they
used to, and, occasionally, during the week, they might have to sit
home for a day or two or three..or, if it's really bad, they might miss
a week or two. Still, most company guys are still working more or less
regularly, despite the downturn in work.

But, life is very different for the vast majority of New York union
carpenters, the "local men" (and "local women") who work out of the
unions out of work list, and get sent to various different contractors
during the course of the year.

These days, they're lucky to get a month's work, after a 5 to 6 month
wait on the out of work list.. Then, due to the "11 day rule" that puts
carpenters on the bottom of the out of work list after 11 days of work,
they go back to the bottom of the list..and wait another half a year
for a few weeks of work.

Once the unemployment checks run out, many local carpenters find
themselves having to do whatever it takes to pay the bills..in some
cases, that means going out and shaping up non union jobs. Of course,
company guys have their cross to bear too..there has been a history of
some contractors making "deals" with their company man
carpenters..steady work, in exchange for working for less than union
scale, (a pratice commonly known as "working for cash"). I've covered
that situation before on GANGBOX, and I'll get into more detail on that
below.

Beyond that, even when local men work, they don't get the full benefits
of being an NYDCofC carpenter unless they surpass the magic number of
1,000 hours of work per year. If you get less than 1,000 hours, you
won't get medical coverage or a pension credit for that year, even
though the Welfare Fund collected contributions on your behalf from the
employers..

In effect, local men subsidize the medical coverage recieved by the
company men and their families.

Beyond that, the whole company man/local man divide creates a deep rift
in our membership.

Many local men resent the fact that, while we sit at home, other are
making money hand over fist.

It's ironic that our union's name is the "United Brotherhood of
Carpenters"..when some "Brothers" make close to $ 100,000 a year..while
other "Brothers" barely see $ 30,000..including what they get from UI.

On the other side, many company guys look down on carpenters from the
hall, thinking that the local guys are less skilled and are bad
carpenters. A lot of contractors think the same way about local man
carpenters.

Now, of course, company guys are going to tend to be better at their
particular specialty than carpenters from the hall.

The reality is, if you spend 2,000 hours a year doing the same type of
work, year in and year out, odds are you're going to get very very good
at that particular type of work.

By contrast, if you're only working 600 or 700 hours a year, and doing
different types of work at that (a couple of weeks of sheetrock here, a
few days of furniture there, a day of ceilings here, a few days on a
storefront partition job there), you might have a broader range of
carpentry skills, but, odds are, you aren't going to be as fast as a
company man on each particular type of carpentry.

It's even worse if you've been on the bench a while, and, naturally,
when you finally get a job, you're a little rusty and it takes you a
little while to get back up to speed.

Of course, the whole career paths of local man carpenters and company
man carpenters totally differ, from apprenticeship to retirement.

A lot of company guys got with a company very early on..or were even
brought into the union by a company. That means that, when they were
apprentices, they managed to spend the whole 4 years working, they got
the full 8,000 hours that, on paper, you're supposed to spend working
in the field as an apprentice before you complete your training.

By contrast, a lot of local men spent their 1st year of apprenticeship
unloading sheetrock trucks, caulking and insulating..that is, when they
were working. Then, they worked even less as a 2nd year, and even less
as a 3rd year..and probably spent most of their 4th year of
apprenticeship sitting home. And then, coming out of apprenticeship
with perhaps 2,500 hours or so worked in the field, they were expected
to compete on a level playing field with other journeymen.

On the other end of the spectrum, many company guys (or at least those
who always got their stamps, and remember, company guys who worked for
cash don't have it like this) retire from this business with, perhaps,
$ 250,000+ in their annuity account, plus 20 or so pension
credits..which, at $ 80 bucks a credit, amounts to $ 1,600 a month in
their pension.

For the local guys, it's a little different.... They probably had to
dip into their annuity several times over the years when they were on
the bench for months, so maybe they only have $ 50,000 or less in the
annuity. And, with breaks in service, and maybe only 2 or 3 full
credits, they might only have enough credits to get the minimum $ 400 a
month pension check.

Basically, we really have two unions..one for the company guys, and one
for the local men.

This unfair situation was intolerable enough before the bombing, when
there was a lot of work, even if it was unequally distributed.. But
today, it's even worse, when there are less hours to go around..and,
the unequal distribution of work is even more glaring than it used to
be.

There is some construction activity out there..but not nearly as much
as their was even a few years ago.

Worse yet, it's mostly non union activity.

The problem is, a lot of the work is in the predominantly non union
housing construction sector.

There are lots of low income, moderate income and luxury co-op
apartment buildings, as well as single family homes, being built in all
across the city.

And, except for the hirise luxury apartments, they're all being built
by non union contractors.

In the case of the HUD subsidized units being renovated in Harlem, the
Bronx and Central Brooklyn, the non union outfits doing the work are
some of the lowest paying contractors in the city, with wages hovering
in the $80 dollar a day range for journeymen carpenters (which is below
the usual non union pay scale, which is typically around $ 150 dollars
a day, which in turn is far below the carpenter union scale of $ 261.52
a day, plus $ 174.37 in benefit fund contributions per day, or a total
of $ 435.89).

There are also privately financed low and moderate income housing
developments in the Northern Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn as well as in the southern part of Brooklyn.
But, all of those jobs are non union..although they pay better than the
contractors who are doing the HUD work.

There is also a lot of renovation activity going on in luxury buildings
in Manhattan and Brooklyn, pretty much all of which is also being done
non union.

There are union built housing developments going up, of course, mainly
luxury hirise like the ones going up near Lincoln Center, on the West
Side, in the Village and on the Upper East Side, on W 145th St in
Harlem, at Flatbush Av and Atlantic Av in Downtown Brooklyn and the
Oceana Apartments development in the Brighton Beach section of
Brooklyn..

But, that sector, which is the only part of residential construction
that is still union..doesn't always exactly have union conditions
prevailing. The luxury hirinse new construction sector, reportedly, has
a history of some union contractors paying cash to some of their
carpenters and laborers. I've covered that before on GANGBOX, and I'll
go into more detail on that below.

There is union work, of course..in particular, there's a lot of highway
work, the reconstruction of the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant,
as well as new railroad construction for Metro North, the Long Island
Rail Road and the new rail link to Kennedy Airport.

That work is 100% union..for now.

But, unlike hirise concrete work, those heavy construction jobs do not
require a lot of carpenter manpower.

Most of the work in heavy construction is done by laborers from Heavy
Construction Laborers local 731 and, to a lesser extent, laborers from
Blasters and Drill Runners local 29 and Construction and General
Building Laborres local 79. Local 731 laborers in particular are
infamous for doing the work of carpenters, cement masons, lathers and
even operating engineers as well as their own work.

These jobs also have a lot of operating engineers on them, running all
the cranes, loaders, bulldozers, backhoes, power shovels and other
heavy equipment. Railroad jobs also have a lot of electricians on them,
due to all the high voltage wiring related to the 3rd rail.

As for carpenters..they usually just have enough carpenters to set the
forms and do whatever miscellaneous carpentry work their might be
around the job.

At the MTA Metro North Railroad Highbridge Yard job, for example, which
is a few weeks away from being turned over, Slattery Skanska USA, the
prime contractor, only has 4 carpenters on it's payroll, with 3 more
carpenters with Nastasi White doing the drywall, ceilings and hardware
work inside the power substation and the railcar repair shop.

However, Slattery, and paving contractor Columbus, have about 30 local
731 laborers, as well as a dozen or so local 14 operating engineers.
And, the 4 electrical subs on the site, Massachussets Electric Co., Egg
Electric, Fischbach & Moore Electric and Correa Electric have about 30
electricians between them.

Besides that, there is also the unfortunate problem that a lot of the
rest of the Davis Bacon work in the city is non union. Like I mentioned
above, the HUD housing work sponsored by the New York City Department
of Housing Preservation and Development is all non union. The New York
City Housing Authority has aslo gone 100% open shop, and the Dormitory
Authority, State of New York and School Construction Authority are also
going down that road.

There is some union Davis Bacon building construction work, of course,
such as the new State Supreme Court and Kings County Family Court
building and the expansion of the US Courhouse for the Eastern District
of New York in Downtown Brooklyn.

Also, Columbia University and New York University, both heavily
government subsidized private institutions, have a lot of work going on
also...

Columbia is building three new hirises, and NYU has a major hirise
under construction as well.

Columbia generally builds 100% union..and NYU, after a brief flirtation
with using scab GC Forkosh Construction to build a hirise dorm in the
late 1990's (right across 14th street from a union-built dorm), is now
also more or less 100% union

But, when it comes to housing and schools built directly by the
government (which, after all, is the bulk of what the government
builds)..they strive to avoid union labor.

We still have our core work in office interior construction..but,
that's fallen off too. And, that sector might not have bottomed out
yet..because the last of the big office building jobs that have been
going on in Times Square since a couple years before the bombing are
still in progress.

Also, Component Assembly Systems has a huge crew of sheetrockers on the
biggest job in New York City, (and the country), the AOL Time Warner
Building at 59th St and Columbus Circle. And, Northside is still doing
the concrete work over at the Bloomberg Building on East 59th Street
and 3rd Avenue.

And, there are some major office construction jobs in Harlem that are
being done union too..the Abyssinian Baptist Church academy on W 135th
Street, and the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union Health
Center and the State Liquor Authority Building, both of which are on W
125th Street.

The problem is, when those jobs are done, and most of them will be
within a year or two's time, the job situation might even get more
brutal than it is now. Which will leave us with a sitiuation where the
bulk of the construction activity in the city will be non union.

We've reached a point where a majority of the carpentry work in this
town (close to 70%) is done by non union contractors.. In the last 3
years, only about 600 of those outfits have been signed up by the New
York District Council of Carpenters Organizing Department.

That's a good start..but, 550 of those companies voluntarily signed up,
mostly so they could bid on office construction work, which is one of
the last remaining strongholds of union construction in this town.

Including high profile NLRB petition campaigns, like Roy Kay, Inc at
the MTA Subway Command Center on W 54th St and 9th Av back in 1999 and
Gaetano Construction at the Gateway to Harlem HPD/HUD housing
renovation job on W 148th St and Fredrick Douglass Boulevard on May 30
of this year, there've only been about 50 sucessful "bottom up"
organizing attempts by the NYDCofC Organizing Department.

As I mentioned above, we also have a history here of some union
contractors having non union conditions on their jobs..that is, paying
cash to their carpenters instead of union scale and the benefit stamps.
That's been especially common in the hirise luxury apartment house
sector, the last island of union work in the otherwise all non union
residential construction sector. I'll get into more detail on that
below.

But, there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

And I'm not just talking about the 2012 Olympics job, or the 2nd Avenue
Subway, or the # 7 train extention, or the Javits Center expansion, or
even the new World Trade Center...all those proposed jobs that we hear
so much about, but, at the end of the day, except for the WTC job,
where foundation work has already begun, those jobs are still ON
PAPER...

And, like most railroad projects, most of the work on the 2nd Av Subway
and the # 7 train extension will be done by...local 731 heavy
construction laborers, local 3 electricians and local 14 operating
engineers.

But, the 2012 Olympics job, besides having a lot of heavy construction
related to the stadium over the LIRR West Side Railroad Yard, will also
include a lot of building construction, including 10 hirise office
buildings just south of the new stadium, and 20 hirise residential
towers for the proposed Olympic Village in Hunters Point, Queens.

There will be lots of concrete work, sheetrock, furniture installation
and woodwork in those buildings.

And, of course, the World Trade Center job will be a very large
commercial office building project..and, commercial office work is the
mainstay of the unionized building trades here, and in particular,
there will be a lot of carpentry work in the new WTC.

Beyond the bright work horizon, the "light at the end of the tunnel"
that I'm referring to are some of the changes that have recently in the
NYDCofC.

Charles Haight, the federal judge who oversees the NYDCofC racketeering
consent decree, recently appointed attorney Walter Mack to supervise
the operations of the NYDCofC's out of work list.

I've already done some coverage on this story on GANGBOX, at :

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

The question is, has Mack cleaned up the list?

It does appear that the list is working better than it has in years.

Most importantly, for the first time in 7 years, the union is actually
making contractors live up to the "50/50 rule". That is, the rule in
many NYDCofC agreements that requires contractors to hire at least 50%
of their workforce from the out of work list, and limits the number of
company men on a job to a maximum of 50%.

But..not every contractor is required to enforce the 50/50 rule.

Two of the major employers associations, the Manufacturing Woodworkers
Association (representing contractors who fabricate and install
architectural woodwork) and the Association of Wall-Ceiling and
Carpentry Industries of New York (representing some of the sheetrock
and ceilings contractors) are specifically exempt from having to match
their company men with local carpenters.

MWA, Wall-Ceiling, the Metropolitan Drywall Association, the Cement
League, the Concrete Contractors of Long Island Association, the Pile
Driving Association, the General Contractors Association of New York,
the Contractors Association of Greater New York, the Building Trades
Employers Association, the Building Contractors Association and the
other employer's associations also have something called the "request
system" in their agreements.

That is, they can request company men, by name, from the out of work
list, and can bypass other carpenters to hire the guys they want.

For example, a concrete outfit like North Side can request a concrete
guy who's # 1,800 on the list, even if there are 200 other concrete
carpenters who have a lower number on the list.

Or, a sheetrock outfit like Component Assembly Systems can request a
sheetrocker who's # 2,000 on the list, even if there are 1,000 other
sheetrock carpenters who's names are ahead of that person's.

In effect, the request system makes a mockery of the out of work
list...because, if you know somebody at a company, and can get yourself
requested, you can bypass hundreds of other guys who've been waiting
for a job for months.

Independent contractors, that is, those not represented by any of the
associations, are no longer allowed to make requests.. Most of the
independents are on the fringe of the industry, doing work like
furniture installation, metal storefront work or venetian blind and
drapery installation.

But, the firms that make up the core of our industry (concrete outfits,
sheetrock and ceiling contractors, woodwork manufacturers and
installers, heavy construction contractors and general contractors) are
allowed to, in effect, evade the list, while appearing to be in
compliance.

Also, some of the international agreements that certain contractors
operate under also do not require the 50/50 ratio either.

Beyond that, the general contractors represented by the Building
Contractors Association have the right to have all company man crews on
2 person jobs that last 5 days or less. Also, BCA contractors don't
have to hire anybody from the hall if the job only has 1 carpenter on
it, as long as the contractor defines the job as "maintenance" rather
than building construction. That one guy doesn't have to be matched by
the hall, even if the job lasts for several years.

And, of course, the woodwork contractors in the Manufactring
Woodworkers Association retain the right they've had for the last few
years to man woodwork installation jobs almost entirely with
cabinetmakers from local 2090, rather than construction carpenters from
locals 608, 157, 45, 926 or 20. Only the steward has to come from a
building construction carpenters local.

Of course, cabinetmakers only make $ 22/hr, instead of the $ 37.36/hr
that outside carpenters get on building construction jobs, and they
have an 8 hour day, instead of the 7 hour day that the building
construction carpenters have.

This means that the most skilled union carpenters in the city are also
the lowest paid.

Article XVIII, Section 27 of the MWA agreement did require that they
use Carpenters Union made millwork that was fabricated within 40 miles
of the New York City line. Unfortunately, the woodwork contractors took
that clause to the NRLB..and the NYDCofC lost..so now they can continue
using out of town material that's either outright non union or made
under sweetheart Teamsters or United Steelworkers union contracts.

The Cement League, Concrete Contractors of Long Island Association,
Associated General Contractors of New York and the Pile Driving
Association also have a special, substandard, pay scale for their
concrete jobs. Their wage is only $ 35.66/hr, which is $ 1.70 an hour
less than the $ 37.36/hr that building construction carpenters get.

That's really odd..carpenters who work the hardest (and we all know
that concrete formwork is the physically most demanding, not to mention
most dangerous, part of our trade) actually get paid LESS than
carpenters on easier jobs!

The millwrights of local 740 also have a lower pay scale, despite the
high skill level and perilous nature of their work. Millwrights are the
folks who install conveyor belts and machinery in factories, airports,
railroad yards, power houses and nuclear plants. And it's not easy
work, the often huge parts they rig are aligned to tolerances of
1,000th of in inch. Also, on nuclear jobs, they are often exposed to
high radiation levels, especially when they change the fuel rods in the
reactors.

Despite that, the millwrights only get $ 36.06/hr..which is 40 cents
more than what concrete and heavy construction carpenters get, but is
still $ 1.30/hr less than building construction carpenter scale.

Also, the timbermen, hod hoist carpenters, scaffold carpenters and test
borers of Timbermen's local 1536 continue to have second class wages,
even though they have the hardest jobs in this union (timbermen on
sewer jobs literally work waste deep in human waste).

Timbermen, hod hoist carpenters and scaffold carpenters only make $
32.61/hr, and test borers make even less, $ 24.53/hr, as opposed to
the $ 35.66 that dockbuilders, heavy construction carpenters and
concrete carpenters get, and the $ 37.36 that building construction
carpenters get. The test borer's benefit stamp is also only worth $
9.69/hr, as opposed to the $ 24.91 per hour in benefits that other
carpenters get.

In addition, the local 1536 scaffold carpenters do not have shop
stewards on their jobs..they have "area stewards" with each
contractor..so there's nobody to watch out for them in the field.

Also, under all agreements, the contractors retain the unrestricted
right to fire shop stewards at will for so called "incompetence".

That is, if a steward is too agressive about investigating cash work,
preventing unsafe work conditions and protecting the jurisdiction, all
the contractor has to do is to fax a letter to the local union saying
that shop steward is "incompetent" and does not know how to do that
type of carpentry work.

Worse yet, if two contractors in the same industry fire that particular
steward for that type of work, that shoppie is blacklisted from doing
that type of work. If the shoppie ever wants to do that type of
carpentry work again, he/she has to get letters from two contractors
saying that he/she is "competent".

In other words..if you're a shoppie who is "for the men" (in other
words, a steward who stands up for the workers on the job you're
covering)..then you can get fired, and even possibly blacklisted from
the subdivision of carpentry that you specialize in.

The flip side of that is obvious..if you're a shoppie who keeps your
eyes closed and your mouth shut..you get to keep your job, and you get
to keep working in that subdivision of our trade.

There is also the matter of Article XIII of the agreements with MWA,
Wall-Ceiling, MDA, the Cement League, Concrete Contractors of Long
Island, PDA, GCA, CAGNY, BCA and BTEA..the section that deals with the
so called "Hardship and Advisory Committee".

In the words of Article XIII, Section 1., paragraph (a) ; "The
Committee may modify terms and conditions to allow the Association
Contractor manage it's particular project or to compete against unfair
Contractors on a site by site basis.".

That is, they can rewrite the agreement to benefit particular
contractors on particular jobs.

This means that contractors can get special "deals" on certain
jobs...possibly even a lower scale, or other weakened rules. The
agreements are pretty damned vague about exactly what "hardships" the
contractors seek relief from...and that's a loophole you can drive a
Mack truck through.

We should watch out for those kind of "market retention" special
deals..

District Council 9 of the International Union of Painters and Allied
Trades has a similar "hardship" clause in their agreements, which has
led to situations where, for example, on one job, the wallpaperhangers
were only getting paid $ 2 a square yard, as opposed to their normal $
8.50 a square yard piecerate.

And, to add insult to injury, there's one last concession.. In the
Miscellaneous Conditions clause of the Cement League agreement, Article
XVIII, Section 29, the NYDCofC has agreed that, in the next contract,
they may require union carpenters on hirise concrete jobs to supply
their own hardhats.

Can you belive that, brothers and sisters?

Big rich hirise concrete outfits like North Side, Cosner, Century Max
and LaQuilla Pinnacle, who make millions of dollars a year off of our
labor, are too damned cheap to supply carpenters with a $ 9 hardhat!!

Pathetic.

But, even within those limitations, there has actually been an effort
to make contractors actually hire carpenters out of the hall..even
furniture contractors, venetian blind installation companies and
storefront partition contractors, three groups of contractors who've
become accustomed to playing fast and loose with the list, and having
all company man crews, or, at best, a crew composed of a bunch of
company guys and one shop steward from the hall.

Also, the NYDCofC is in the process of setting up a B fund....that is,
a supplimental fund for unemployed members. Electrician's local 3 has
had a B fund for many years, and many union carpenters (including this
writer) have been calling for a Carpenters B fund as well.

Unfortunately, the Carpenters B fund that the District Council has
proposed isn't nearly as good as what the local 3 electricans have.
This B fund plan is actually skewed in favor of..the company men.

The proposed B fund would be financed by having the $ 1 dollar raise
scheduled for July 2003 be put into a fund. But, instead of all the
money being used to benefit unemployed carpenters, (which would be
similar to what local 3 has for it's members) instead, the money would
go to each member.

That is, if you were a local man who worked 300 hours, there would be $
300 bucks in your B fund, that you could withdraw to help tide you
over.. And, if you were a company man who worked 2,000 hours..you'd
have $ 2,000 bucks in your B fund, that you could withdraw to spend on
whatever you wanted.

In other words, local men would be using the measly amount of money in
their B fund to keep the lights on and the phone connected...while
company guys would use the big bucks in their B fund to pay for their
next trip to Cancun or Aruba.

I ask again..what kind of "united brotherhood" is that???

Instead of having the small number of guys who work every day subsidize
the majority of guys who don't (which is what they should have done,
after all, this union is SUPPOSED to be a "brotherhood", right?) the
local guys end up having to, as usual, subsist on scraps, while the
company men get that much more money put in their pocket.

Don't get me wrong, this B fund is better than nothing..but it could
have been better.

Beyond that, there's even been some effort to deal with the cash
situation..that is, the problem we've had for the last decade where
we've had contractors paying cash to company men, rather than paying
their full unoin scale wage and benefit stamps.

I've discussed this situation on GANGBOX before, in detail, at :

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/831

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2920

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2987

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/3024

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/7582

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/8985

and

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

For years, members have complained, mostly anonymously, about this
situation. Some of those complaints wre aired on the Carpenter's Jaw'in
rank and file carpenters internet bulletin board
[http://angry.at/jawin], while others complained here on the GANGBOX
listserve about this situation. Also, there have been law enforcement
investigations by the New York County DA's office, the New York State
Attorney General, the US Department of Justice and the US Department of
Labor about this issue.

Some of the worst offenders have been in the furniture installation
industry. Most of that sector's work is in the heart of the unionized
carpentry industry...office interior work. However, the furniture
outfits go in last, and a lot of their work is in occupied buildings,
where there are no other union carpenters, and no shop stewards to keep
an eye on them.

As is common with cash-ridden sectors of our industry, a lot of
furniture carpenters are company men.

These companies run a lot of all-company man jobs, especially the
"service calls" in occupied buildings. For the last few years, it's
become rare to see a furniture job with anything close to a 50/50
match...at best, it'll be a bunch of company guys, a steward, and maybe
one or two local guys..or, more commonly, a steward plus a bunch of
company men.

Basically, a situation expists where, allegedly, many of these
furniture companies seem to expect their company men to work for cash
in return for steady work.

Two of these companies finally got busted by the NYDCofC for paying
cash....L & D Installers and CMI.

CMI actually got shut down by the NYDCofC.. L & D, who a District
Council investigation determined was double breasted, (that is, they
had union and non union crews), and had paid cash to a lot of
carpenters, was forced to pay a large financial penalty to the NYDCofC
Welfare Fund, as well as greivance checks paid directly to 35 furniture
carpenters selected from the out of work list.

Needless to say, both these companies really felt the pain from this
ruling..and deservedly so.

However, has that cleaned up the rest of the furniture business?

That's questionable...because it appears that L & D and CMI were not
the only contractors in that sector who, allegedly, paid cash.
Reportedly, some of the firms that, allegedly, have paid cash to at
least some of their carpenters are; G & M Installers, OMNI, T.O.P.S.,
J.A.D., J & E Enterprises, Al-Lee Installations, Arrow Discount Office
Furniture D/B/A E G Sales, DFB Sales and Vintage Corporate Services.

And what do all these companies have in common?

Their workforce is disporportionately composed of company men.

Office furniture installation contractors rarely hire from the hall,
and most of their jobs have all company man crews. This means that, if
you're a furniture guy, and you want to work steady, you have to do
what the boss and the dispatcher tell you to do..

At the very minimum, that means supplying your own cordless drill,
despite the requirement in our bylaws and working rules, and in the
agreements, that the contractor must supply all power tools.

Worse yet, in many cases, that might mean working on a non union job,
or working for cash. The alternative is to go on the out of work list,
and wait for 4 or 5 months, and get maybe 15 or 20 days of furniture
work, and they go to the bottom of the list for another half a year or
more.

It's even worse with the drapery and venetian blind outfits.

These companies are, for the most part, non union companies who's
employees pay union dues...or, in some cases, the boss buys the guys
union cards, and pays the dues, so they can come on union jobsites. The
venetian blind contractors are, arguably, among the dirtiest outfits in
the industry...they may be signatory to the NYDCofC's Independent
Building Construction Agreement, but they are not really "union"
contractors.

But, the cash problem is more widespread than among furniture and
drapery installation outfits working in the office interior sector.

There have also been reports of cash activity by drywall
contractors..both in the office interior sector, and in new
construction of luxury hirise apartment buildings and hotel renovation
work.

The NYDCofC did finally straighten out A & M Wallboard and
Nastasi-White. Those outfits, which were once the largest drywall
contractors in the city, had a habit of paying the rate..but, not
paying the benefit fund contributions. That has now been corrected.

But, A & M and Nastasi wern't even the worst offenders in the sheetrock
business.

Reportedly, there are companies that, allegedly, paid less than union
scale, as well as no benefit stamps, allegedly including contractors
like S & S Construction, R & J Construction, Frank's Home Improvement,
S & F Carpentry, Eurotech, Target Construction, Crown Partition,
Arrowstar, New York City Accoustical, Chelsea Interiors, Luna
Carpentry, Sunrise Construction, On Par, Prince Carpentry, Ace Drywall,
Universal Drywall, Manhattan Interior Group and Turbo Interiors.

This activity was largely concentrated in the hirise luxury apartment
building sector. As I pointed out above, that's the only part of
residential construction that's still union. But, apparently, the low
non union wages prevailing in the rest of the residential construction
sector caused union outfits working in luxury hirises to pay
substandard wages and no benefits.

Some of this cash activity was also, reportedly, in the hotel
renovation sector, a market that is still largely union controlled but
which, again, may have been influenced by the fact that so much of
residential construction is non union, and the wages on the scab side
of that market are so much lower.

It was that market segment where companies like Component Assembly
Systems imposed piecerate bonus systems, with no stamps paid on the OT
portion of the piecerate.

CAS' supers would figure out how many hours they thought it should take
to rock up an apartment, and then would pay the guys per apartment,
rather than per hour..if the per apartment rates added up to more than
35 hours, they'd pay the first 35 hours with the rate and the
stamps..and, allegedly, the extra hours would get paid in cash, with no
benefit stamps.

Reportedly, R & J Construction and Frank's Home Improvement allegedly
paid far less than union scale on the few HPD HUD subsidized housing
jobs in Harlem that were done union...reportedly, anywhere between $
8/hr and $ 30/hr, depending on the job, with no benefit stamps paid.

R & J is notorious for other labor abuses as well, like 100 board per
day production quotas, "enforcers" who spy on the foremen to see if
they're pushing the carpenters fast enough, and 2 hour unpaid "tryouts"
for carpenters trying to shape up a job. No wonder most New York union
carpenters despise R & J (or "Run and Jump", as a lot of guys call that
company).

Also, it appears to have been the case that a lot of other union Davis
Bacon work may have been done for cash as well... Again, this may have
been influenced by the fact that so much of HPD, DASNY and SCA's is
done by non union contractors who pay rock bottom wages, and
consequently put in rock bottom bids.

Interior work on stores and restaurants may also have been affected by
cash activity as well..again, this is a sector which is largely non
union, with only small areas of the market union (Midtown, Financial
District, Downtown Brooklyn and parts of the Upper East Side, Upper
West Side and Harlem), and with most of the sector dominated by rat
contractors (the rest of the city).

The proximity of large numbers of non union contractors, of course,
would tend to encourage union outfits to put in low bids by any means
necessary, even if that meant paying cash.

It's not clear how much cash activity bled into office interior
work..but, it's very likely that some of it did.

Again, one of the main reasons that the cash system, as well as the
other labor abuses in the drywall business, were able to take root is
the company man system.

If a carpenter has a choice between steady work..but at a lower pay
scale and no stamps, or waiting on the out of work list for 5 months to
get a few weeks of work at union scale with the benefit stamps, the
"choice" is clear..scab or starve.

For some R & J carpenters, the choice was even clearer...

Ralph Richardson, R & J's owner, reportedly hires unemployed young
Black men (some of whom have had brushes with the law) from poor
communities like South Queens, Central Brooklyn, Harlem, the South
Bronx, Long Beach and Hempstead, enabling them to get in the union..and
then, they become dependent on Ralph to stay employed.

Needless to say, those guys, moreso than most company guys, have to do
what Ralph says, and give him his 100 boards a day, or sit at the
bottom of the list for half a year, and then get a few weeks work with
a contractor where they don't have any kind of connections.

The hirise concrete industry has had similar problems. Reportedly, the
concrete cash activity didn't just include carpenters, but also
included concrete laborers from locals 6A, 18A and 20 of the Concrete
Workers District Council of the Laborers International Union of North
America. It appears that local 46 Lathers, local 780 Cement Masons and
local 14 Operating Engineers employed by these companies got their full
union scale and benefits.

Among the contractors who allegedly paid cash were Rivara, Pile
Foundations, Peter Scalamandre & Sons, Inc, North Side, Inc [formerly
North Berry, Inc], LaQuilla Pinnacle, Marmer Brothers, Atlas and
Manhattan Concrete.

The Scalamandre brothers actually pled guilty in Federal Court to
paying cash, and the owner of North Berry, one Joseph Martinelli, was
indicted for labor racketeering, along with his company, executives of
Marmer Brothers, and officials of the NYDCofC (including Executive
Secretary Treasurer Mike Forde), Concrete Laborers local 20 and
Bricklayers local 1. Martinelli's son, Frankie, owns North Side, Inc,
North Berry's sucessor company.

Similar to the situation in the drywall industry, the cash activity
that allegedly occured in hirise concrete reportedly was largely
concentrated in new construction of luxury hirise apartments.. Again,
the fact that the residential market is overwhelmingly non union
created a situation where contractors would feel the need to make low
bids in this sector..and paying cash would be a good way to do that.

Again, the company man system made paying cash possible. Company man
carpenters or laborers working for a hirise concrete outfit on, let's
say a 40 story job on a 3 day cycle can expect about 24 straight weeks
of work, almost 6 months of employment (and that's a long job in this
business).

However local man carpenters or laborers might just get a couple of
days coming out of the hole before they get their two checks.

So, making a deal could pay off in the long run for a concrete company
man..even if it meant cutting the throats of their brothers and
sisters, and screwing themselves out of benefits.

Actually, considering the fact that many company guys have wives who
are employed, and who have full family health coverage from their jobs,
they might be able to make it without the union benefits.

The scaffold business also has a history of cash...and outright
deunionization. Sidewalk bridge contractor Regional Scaffolding &
Hoisting has been accused in the past of paying "profit sharing" checks
instead of benefit stamps, and of having a $ 25/hr pay scale.

Two other scaffold contractors went even further..Rockledge Scaffold
and Colgate Scaffold actualy ripped up their union agreements with the
NYDCofC, Laborers local 731 and Teamsters local 282, and went straight
up non union.

Together with the influx of openly non union scaffold contractors like
Lakhi General Contractors, City Scaffolding, Hi Tech Scaffolding and
Perimiter Bridge & Scaffold, this has led to a situation where a sector
that was almost 100% union just a decade ago being almost entirely non
union, with only a few union shops like Hirise Hoisting and
Scaffolding, Rick Mugler, York Ladder and Scaffold, UBS and American
Scaffold remaining in the business.

And, unfortunately, the NYDCofC's response to all this unionbusting
was..givebacks. That's how the scaffold carpenters got exiled from the
building construction locals to the "1536 B" division of Timbermen's
local 1536, that's why they have no job stewards, just "area stewards"
and that's why they have a lower pay scale ($ 32.61/hr instead of $
37.36/hr).

It almost goes without saying that..the scaffold business these days
is....predominantly company men.

Again, here's a situation where guys feel pressured to make a deal to
get steady work, rather than sitting on the out of work list for 4 or 5
months and then getting just a few days work before they go back to the
bottom of the list again.

The bottom line is, even though the NYDCofC has become a lot more
agressive in enforcing the agreements, in particular enforcing the
hiring rules and fighting against the payment of cash, there are still
some deeper problems here.

One, there is still a two-tier union, with some guys (the local men, of
course) marginally employed, and others (the company men) having full
time jobs, but often having to pay the price for full employment by
making deals. This means that the cash problem, even if eradicated now,
will pop up again.

Two, the fact is, the main reason that the union is cracking down is
because of the pressure of law enforcement investigations.

If it wasn't for the US Department of Justice, the US Department of
Labor, State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer and New York County
District Attorney Bob Morgenthau poking around, it's doubtful that any
of the recent positive changes would have even happened.

Three, there's been a pattern of concessions, giveback after giveback
after giveback, that has been going on ever since we gave up double
time for OT in 1993.

We can still see that today, with the request system, the weakening of
the shop steward system, the weakening (and, under the 1536 B Division
scaffold carpenters, Manufacturing Woodworkers Association and
Association of Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries agreements,
abolition) of the 50/50 system and the multitier wages.

Now, these three interlinked crises are likely to lead to lots of
problems for us.

For example, the reason the government is here is because the mortgage
bankers, developers and financiers who control our industry don't like
having to pay bribes for the privilige of having cut rate wages. That's
why they sent the feds, the state and the city after < Mafiosi > and
labor racketeers in our industry two decades ago, and that's why the
investigative activity continues.

But...it's entirely possible that the government could be persuaded to
stop investigating corruption in our union if the union were willing
to agree to lower wages and benefits.

We can already see that now..that's why we have the multitier wages,
the weakened out of work list rules, the weakened shop steward system,
and the other concessions.. And, if present trends continue, that could
be a big problem for us, a very big problem.

Remember, once work takes off, (and, once the new World Trade Center
and 2012 Olympics work kicks off, it will - it might even be booming
like the 1980's again), we might not necessarily see an improvement in
our condtions.

Hell, we might even see more givebacks..especially if the government
keeps up the pressure.

And, since the Olympic and WTC jobs are going to be largely government
financed, we might even see a spread in outright non union work...

Remember, it wasn't that long ago when the city did all it's Davis
Bacon carpentry work with NYDCofC union carpenters...

If they can build public housing projects, schools and CUNY campuses
without us, there's no reason why they couldn't do the Olympic stadium
or the new WTC without us either..

Even when work picks up, things could get a lot worse before they get
better.

And, of course, even if all the work that comes is done 100%
union..there's still that company man/local man division. The company
guys will get the lion's share of the work, while the brothers and
sisters on the out of work list will only pick up the tail end.

In other words, once it gets busy, the local men might actually manage
to get 1,000 hours a year..but the company men will be getting 2 or
even 3,000 hours a year.

The question is, why is this happening to our union, which was once one
of the strongest unions in New York City?

And, more importantly, what can we do about it?

The root of the problems in our union is something called "business
unionism".

That is, the ideology that workers and bosses have "common interests"
and that it's the job of unions and union officials to seek "labor
management partnership" and "class peace".

In the carpenters union, and the building trades as a whole, business
unionism has been the dominant ideology for over 100 years.

Worse yet, we have an especially bad form of business unionism in our
unions...I like to call it "gangster unionism". That is, a system where
certain contractors, usually those with ties to < la cosa nostra >
and/or those who were willing to pay bribes, were able to buy the right
to violate the union agreements by such pratices as lumping and having
guys work for cash. This competitive advantage enabled these
contractors to, in many cases, put in lower bids and win jobs from
those contractors who paid scale. In other cases, the contractors
billed as if they paid scale..and merely pocketed the difference.

That created a problem for the developers and the bankers..they didn't
mind carpenters being underpaid, hell, in the long run, they'd like to
see all of us get our wages cut.. The only problem was, the big boys
wanted to profit from substandard wages..and, a lot of times, they
didn't get to do that.

Which is why the feds, and the state, and the city, have been after our
union for the last quarter century.

The government, like the moneymen, would like to see ALL carpenters get
our wages and benefits reduced, not just those who work for companies
that pay bribes or have organized crime connections.

They would also like to see our hiring hall system and apprenticeship
program gutted, and would like to, basically, destroy craft unionism as
we know it. The government feels we're too loyal to our unions..and
they'd like to see us to instead be subservient to whatever contractor
we're working for.

The New York State Organized Crime Task Force spelled this all out very
clearly 13 years ago, in their report, "Corruption and Racketeering in
the New York City Construction Industry", by Ronald Goldstock, Martin
Marcus, Thomas D. Thatcher II and James B. Jacobs (New York, NYU Press,
1990)...and those anti union sentiments are shared by the feds and the
city as well.

And, that's why the man who's been international president of the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America for the past 8
years, one Douglass J. "Cash" McCarron, is trying to introduce a new
type of business unionism to our union..a variety that "Cash" sometimes
refers to as "user friendly unionism" (with the contractors as the
"users", of course), but I like to call "corporate unionism".

Corporate unionism basically means that the union gives substandard
wages and benefits to ALL contractors, not just the ones that pay
bribes or are connected, allegedly, with < la cosa nostra >.

That's how our union is run out in California, where "Cash" McCarron is
from, that's how unions like the Service Employees International Union
are run, and that's how he'd like the NYDCofC to operate.

And, as I've shown above, our union is kinda sorta headed in that
direction these days. Every contractor, with the exception of those
companies who aren't in an association, gets to play games, and a lot
of contractors don't even have to pay the full scale anymore, or even
hire a 50/50 crew.

The question is..what can we do about this?

As I see it, the root of our problem is business unionism..and the
solution is something that I call "revolutionary unionism".

What's that?

I've discussed the ideology of 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

and

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

Basically, revolutionary unionism means recognizing the fact that
workers and bosses have a conflict of interest, and always will for as
long as we live under a capitalistic system. Their wealth comes from
our labor. We generate all of the revenue (upwards of $ 250 worth per
hour, depending on what type of carpentry we're talking about)...but,
we only get to see $ 37.36/hr of that value that we create.. or $
36.06/hr, or $ 35.66/hr, or $ 32.61/hr, or $ 24.53/hr, or $ 22/hr,
depending under which agreement we're working.

In effect, we pay the contractors, rather than them paying us. You
might even say they're robbing us, considering how we create all the
wealth, but so little of it ends up in our pocket.

Either way, we're going to have a conflict of interest with them, for
as long as we live in a society ruled by businesspeople and
financiers....and a revolutionary union would set it's strategy and
tactics based on that fundamental reality.

So, how would a revolutionary union deal with the question of equal
distribution of work?

I would suggest creating what I call a "90/10" out of work list system.

That is, 90% of a contractor's labor would come from the hall, and only
a maximum of 10% of his/her carpenter workforce could be company men.

Here's how it would work. A contractor would be permitted to have a
maximum of 5 of his/her first 10 carpenters be company men, with the
remainder being carpenters hired from the hall. After the 11th
carpenter, a minimum of 90% of that contractor's workers would be hired
from the out of work list, with a maximum of 10% being company men.

Considering the fact that the carpentry industry has a long and ugly
history of race and sex discrimination, and there's also a longstanding
pattern of 3rd and 4th year apprentices getting less job opportunities
than they should, as well as the fact that older carpenters often get
cast by the wayside, we need to take some affirmative action-type
measures to balance out how the jobs are handed out.

So, I would suggest that a minimum of one out of every three carpenters
referred to each contractor would be Black, Latino, Chinese or Indian,
one out of every twenty would be a woman, one out of every five would
be an apprentice (with at least half the apprentices referred to each
contractor being a 3rd or 4th year) and one out of every ten would be a
carpenter over age 50.

And, these local carpenters wouldn't be hired by the day, as they are
now. Instead, the contractor would take the carpenters from job to job,
as long as work was available. If the contractor had to do a layoff due
to lack of work, the layoffs should be by seniority..that is, last
carpenter hired, first laid off.

If a contractor wanted to fire a carpenter for cause, they would have
to have a good reason. This reason would have to be presented, in
writing, to the carpenter in question, as well as to the shop steward,
and then the contractor would have to go before a union tribunal and
prove that they had a legitimate reason to fire that carpenter.

The standard would be preponderance of the evidence..the same level of
proof required in civil court. The only legitimate reasons to fire a
carpenter would be sexual harassment, assault on a supervisor or fellow
employee, theft, willful destruction of employer's or client's or a
co-worker's property, drug or alcohol abuse on the job during working
hours or unexcused absence from work for 5 or more days.

Also, it would be forbidden for a contractor to fire a shop steward for
any reason...

However, if a shop steward had been proven to have engaged in sexual
harassment, assault, theft, willful destruction of property, drinking
or getting high on the job, bribe recieving or extortion, he/she could
be removed from their post by order of the District Council.

I would repeal the current rule, where a shop steward can be fired, and
blacklisted from that subdivision of the trade, for so called
"incompetence" at the whim of a contractor.

If an employer felt that a worker, shop steward, journeylevel carpenter
or apprentice, was "incompetent" in performing the type of carpentry
performed by that employer, that carpenter would be removed from the
job for a week, and sent down to the NYC District Council of Carpenters
Labor Technical College to take a 40 hour, 5 day class in that
particular type of work.

For certain highly skilled branches of our trade, such as woodwork or
millwright work, the course would be an 120 hour, 15 day program.

Upon sucessful completion of that special refresher course, there would
be a presumption that the carpenter was qualified to perform that type
of work, and no contractor would be permitted to fire that tradesperson
for "incompetence" in that particular type of work.

In the event that any carpenter lost his/her job, they would be
provided with a supplimental unemployment benefit from the B Fund. That
B Fund would be financed by $ 2/hr out of the benefit stamps, plus the
current 1% assessment that's deducted from the vacation checks.

Funding permitting, the B Fund would provide $ 405/wk for each
unemployed carpenter for 52 weeks.

Also, if unemployment among NYDCofC members should reach or exceed 10%
of the membership, there would be a ban on all OT and work on Sundays
and legal holidays, and Saturday work would be limited to a regular 7
hour day. Contractors who needed to do OT or weekend work to push a job
would be instructed to hire extra carpenters from the hall, and, if
necessary, add a night shift to their jobs.

As NYDCofC unemployment currently stands at 14%, and was as high as 35%
during the winter, that OT ban would currently be in effect under these
rules.

Also, to discourage contractors from using OT, and to encourage them to
hire as many carpenters from the hall as possible, I would restore
double time for all OT, something that the NYDCofC gave up in 1993.

I would go further, and impose a $ 8/hr B Fund OT penalty payment on
all OT, Saturday, Sunday and legal holiday work, in addition to the
regular $ 2/hr payment into the B Fund for straight time work.

We'd need a strengthened shop steward system to protect all of these
gains. I would propose that every contractor have a general shop
steward, as well as job stewards on every shift at every jobsite.

The general stewards at GCs and subcontractors would be appointed by
the DC, the general stewards at cabinet shops, the Jacob K. Javits
Convention Center, Madison Square Garden and in the maintenance
carpentry shops at department stores and office buildings would be
directly elected by the workers they represent.

In either case they would serve 6 month terms of office, and, in the
case of general stewards at GCs and subcontractors, they would have to
work on their tools for at least 6 months before serving as a general
steward for another term.

The general stewards would be in charge of making sure that every job
is called in, stewards are assigned to every job, every carpenter is
getting full scale plus stamps for every hour worked and that
greivances are resolved on jobsites as they happen.

On large jobs, where 50+ carpenters were employed, there would be an
assistant shop steward appointed. There would also be one additional
assistant steward for every 50 carpenters. Jobs with more than one
shift would have at least one shoppie per shift.

The job stewards would enforce conditions on the jobsites and, if
necessary, would stop work to resolve a greivance or a safety
condition. If a work stoppage went past 3 days, every job being run by
a company should be stopped, and an official sanctioned strike would be
declared by the NYDCofC.

This system would bring our union roaring into the 20th century..we'd
finally have the kind of job protection that union members in other
industries have had for the last 80 years.

But, for us to have these kinds of union protections..we'd have to have
a very different kind of union than we do now.

First and foremost, we'd have to have a different kind of union
leadership, one based on delegates elected from the rank and file,
rather than the current officer-dominated system.

In a revolutionary Carpenters Union, all political power would come
from the membership, as represented by rank and file delegates. That
would be a major change from the present structure, where all power
comes from BAs and officers, many of whom make 6 figure salaries, and
haven't put on the tools in years.

I would propose that the main administrative body in the NYDCof C would
be a Council of Delegates.

But, my proposed Council of Delegates would be very different than the
present Delegate Body, which is composed almost entirely of BAs and
officers (and even foremen!), rather than rank and file carpenters.

This Council of Delegates would be made up of carpenters who work on
the tools, who would get time off from work (paid by the union at the
journeyman rate) to attend delegate meetings. The delegates would be
journeylevel carpenters, with at least 5 years in the business, who
would be directly elected from each local, and would serve a single,
non re electable 3 year term of office.

The Council of Delegates would decide on all union expenditures, make
all policy decisions, and supervise the work of all union committees,
officers and staff.

There would still be union officers and BAs, but they would be
subordinate to the Council of Delegates. Those officers would also be
elected to 3 year, non re electable terms, would earn a salary
equivilant to what a journeylevel carpenter would earn from a year of
35 hour weeks, and, upon completion of their term of office, would have
to return to the tools for a minimum of 3 years before they'd be
eligible to run for any other elected union office.

The NYDCofC's out of work list system would be overseen by an Out of
Work List Committee, composed of delegates directly elected by the rank
and file, under the same rules as the Council of Delegates. The Out of
Work List Committee would oversee the operation of the dispatch system,
and contractor compliance with my proposed 90/10 rule.

As I mentioned above, in the event that a contractor wanted to fire a
carpenter for cause, that proposed discharge would have to be reviewed
by a union tribunal.

That tribunal would be the union Trial Committee. The Trial Committe
would be composed of delegates elected directly by the membership,
under the same election rules as the Council of Delegates.

The Trial Committee would review the proposed discharge, to make sure
that the contractor actually has a legitimate reason to fire that
particular carpenter (such as theft, willful destruction of employer's,
client's or co-worker's property, assault on a supervisor or a fellow
worker, sexual harassment or unexcused absence from work for more than
5 consecutive days). The contractor wouldn't be allowed to fire that
worker until the Trial Committee had found that the employer had just
cause.

This would abolish the at will employment system that union carpenters
in New York have suffered under for the last 150 years.

As I pointed out above, taking away the contractor's despotic power to
fire carpenters at will would do a lot to enable carpenters to resist
on the job abuses, without fear of being laid off on the spot.

The Trial Committee would also handle all other internal union charges,
and would also have the authority to impeach union officers for
misconduct.

There would also be an Organizing Committee, composed of directly
elected delegates, that would carry out the work of making sure that
every GC and subcontractor in the NYDCofC area was using union
carpenters. Remember, if we don't bring up every carpenter in our area
up to union levels, our conditions will inevitably fall to non union
levels.

We can see that clearly with the luxury hirise sector. Since the rest
of residential construction is non union, the contractors who work in
the only remaining unionized segment of that sector (that is, luxury
hirises) end up forcing wages down to non union levels illegally by
paying cash. We're also at risk of having the union ultimately imposing
a lower residential scale on the union residential job, as has already
been done in every other District Council and Regional Council in North
America.

We need to make sure that every construction site in this city use
union carpenters, every carpentry subcontractor is union (and actually
pays scale), every GC only uses union subs, and every carpenter in this
town has a union book and works under union conditions.

In other words..organizing.

And I don't mean "organize" the way "Cash" McCarron does.

What I'm talking about is revolutionary unionist-style organizing.

I've written about that style of organizing on GANGBOX before, at :

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

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

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

and

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

Basically, that means going back to the same methods that were
originally used 150 years ago by Peter J. McGuire and the other
socialists, communists and anarchists who originally built this union.
That is, what they called a "trade movement".

A "trade movement" was basically a city or area wide general strike of
carpenters.

They'd have a march of union members go around town, and shut down
every non union jobsite they saw, until every General Contractor was