ISSN 1523-5688
Lead Report

AFL-CIO Sweeney Orders BCTD to Drop Carpenters; Building Trade Leaders Unified in Opposition

Reporting no progress in reaffiliation negotiations with the Carpenters and Joiners of America, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney has told the federation's Building and Construction Trades Department to disaffiliate the union at the national and district council levels by no later than Sept. 15, according to an Aug. 1 letter from Sweeney to BCTD President Edward C. Sullivan.
Sullivan, in an Aug. 3 written response to Sweeney, asked for more time to resolve the matter. Commending Sweeney for his continued efforts to persuade the Carpenters to return to the labor fold, Sullivan said he was "disappointed and concerned" that the discussions to date have not been successful.

"This crisis does not belong exclusively to John Sweeney, [Carpenters President] Doug McCarron and Ed Sullivan, but must be shared by all leaders of conscience who embrace our movement, treasure its heritage, and seek better standards of living for workers," Sullivan said in the letter. "In the end, we all must answer to our members and to future workers why, in this critical moment, we risked such grave consequences because labor's collective leadership failed to find a better solution."

While Sullivan did not say in his letter to Sweeney that his department would not comply with the order, he cautioned that the executive council should "very seriously consider the dire but predictable consequences" for all unions if the disaffiliation order is enforced.

In anticipation of the federation's ultimatum, building trade union presidents agreed in a June 25 vote that the department but not its individual affiliated unions, in effect, would withdraw from the AFL-CIO before it would force the 525,000-member Carpenters to disaffiliate.

"They have their constitutional stuff. We have our industry. We're not throwing out the Carpenters. There's too much at risk," one building trade union official said. "Anyone who wants the Carpenters out of BCTD has total ignorance of the construction industry."

Sweeney: 'The Time Has Come.'

Sweeney told Sullivan in the Aug. 1 letter that he had decided that "the time had come to conclude, however reluctantly, that the Carpenters will not be reaffiliated with the federation at the present time." After numerous meetings with Carpenters President McCarron to discuss conditions for reaffiliation, Sweeney said, it "became clear" that McCarron had "no interest" in reaffiliation.

According to Sweeney, "virtually all" members of the federation's 54-member executive council meeting last February "advocated giving the Carpenters one last final chance" to reaffiliate. Council members also recognized that reaffiliation negotiations could not continue indefinitely, he said, and that a deadline was needed (49 CLR 25, 3/5/03). After agreeing that a 30-day deadline following the February executive council meeting might be too short a period "to provide a meaningful final opportunity," Sweeney said the council allowed him "to impose a deadline if and when I determined it appropriate to do so."

With no progress in reaffiliation talks with the Carpenters since the council's winter meeting, Sweeney said he has "reluctantly concluded" that McCarron remains unwilling to rejoin the federation despite the fact that the federation has been "extremely responsive" to concerns McCarron has raised over the past two years.

As a result, Sweeney said he was compelled "to exercise [his] responsibilities under the constitution" to ensure that the Carpenters were not entitled to BCTD representation "unless and until they 'first be and remain in affiliation with the federation,' " under Article XII, Section 2 of the AFL-CIO constitution.

Ultimatum Was Expected

News that this development was imminent reached BCTD leadership informally in June. Sullivan called a June 25 meeting of the presidents of the 15 unions affiliated with BCTD to relay the message that a showdown on the matter should be expected at the August AFL-CIO executive council meeting. At the June meeting attended by about 10 building trades presidents plus one participating by telephone, union sources said that while there was not a resolution on which a vote was taken, the sentiment at the meeting was that the affiliates' construction industry interests would not be compromised by federation organizational requirements.

Because the building trades department is a subordinate entity to the AFL-CIO, the department is bound by the federation's constitution, which requires affiliates of trade departments to be affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

"This is the first time these guys have been united on anything," one senior industry official said of the building trade union presidents. Commending the building trade presidents' position on this matter, he said the federation "is making a big thing of something that really isn't."

One source expressed concern that the Carpenters controversy "could revive schisms that existed before 1955" when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Unions were separate entities.

Several sources said the confrontation perhaps could have been averted at an Aug. 3 meeting of the executive council's newly created executive committee prior to the executive council meetings Aug. 5-6 in Chicago but that did not occur.

The Carpenters withdrew from the AFL-CIO in March 2001, citing disagreements with the federation over organizing and spending priorities (47 CLR 129, 4/4/01). Sweeney subsequently sent a letter to affiliates stating that the union, by withdrawing from the federation, forfeited its membership in the building trades department.

Late last year, the union reaffiliated with BCTD, but not with the federation. Sweeney sent Carpenters' President McCarron a letter saying that for the reaffiliation to be approved by the federation, the Carpenters must also renew their AFL-CIO membership.

Since the council's winter meeting, Sweeney and McCarron have continued to discuss reaffiliation with assistance from BCTD President Sullivan and occasionally former Labor Secretary John Dunlop. While the meetings have been cordial, sources said little if any progress has been made in negotiation of conditions under which the Carpenters would
reaffiliate with the federation.

Sullivan Asks for More Time

In an Aug. 4 BNA telephone interview, Sullivan said BCTD had prepared a resolution, to be presented at the executive council's Aug. 5 meeting, asking that Sweeney's disaffiliation order be held in abeyance until September 2005 "so we can continue to work with [AFL-CIO President] Sweeney and others to resolve the Carpenters issue." BCTD's next convention is in August 2005. Union leaders are gathered in Chicago for the federation's executive council meetings Aug. 5-6.

According to Sullivan, there was "unanimous support" at the Aug. 4 meeting of BCTD's governing board "to stick together and work in solidarity. We can't afford to have any of our affiliates not be a part of the department."

Under the proposed resolution, BCTD asked Sweeney to appoint a five-member panel that includes building trade union presidents to resolve issues of concern to the Carpenters, according to a copy of the resolution obtained by BNA.

Sullivan said he recognized that Sweeney "is bound" by the federation's constitution and understood that some federation affiliates may be irritated by selective enforcement of the constitution. "He certainly has our respect for what he's trying to do," Sullivan said of Sweeney's repeated attempts at negotiating reaffiliation with the Carpenters.

Despite these conciliatory remarks, Sullivan said BCTD's overriding concern is the effect disaffiliation would have on the construction industry's union sector, especially at a time when "great strides" have been made in improving relations with construction owners.

If BCTD is forced comply with the Aug. 1 disaffiliation order, Sullivan said in his letter, "we will step onto a precipice of constitutional legalism that may gut the unionized construction industry and undermine the livelihoods of construction craftspeople throughout this continent."

Expanding on this point in his letter to Sweeney, Sullivan said the nature of construction requires that all trades--including the Carpenters--"must work in sequence, side-by-side, and in harmony. Our industry rightly expects and demands this from us. To exclude any of our unions from this process invites chaos."

Also at stake with disaffiliation, Sullivan said, is the financial viability of building trade union investments in the federation's Building and Housing Investment Trusts. Equally important, he said, are building trade union investments in ULLICO Inc., the union-owned insurance company that is undergoing extensive restructuring under the leadership of Terence O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers' International Union, he said.

As unions gear up for the 2004 election cycle, Sullivan said the escalation of internal disorder that disaffiliation would trigger is especially badly timed. Grassroots political work by unions "is the only ground-level force that prevents the wholesale occupation of our government by anti-labor, right-wing ideologues," according to Sullivan.

Not mentioned by Sullivan in the letter but noted by one building trades president contacted by BNA is the significant per capita tax financial support the department gets from the Carpenters. "When the Carpenters were out of BCTD before, BCTD was broke," he said.

What the Carpenters Want

McCarron has maintained that extensive structural reform must be undertaken at the federation before the Carpenters will reaffiliate. A Carpenters official Aug. 1 said the union stands by the March 2001 letter McCarron sent to Sweeney announcing its decision to withdraw from the federation.

In that letter, McCarron credited Sweeney with "making progress in generating public awareness of the labor movement" and raising the federation's political profile. Despite "strong words and good intentions, the more fundamental changes have not been addressed," he said. "The AFL-CIO continues to operate under the rules and procedures of an era that passed years ago, while the industries that employ our members change from day to day," McCarron said at the time.

In the five years leading up to the Carpenters' withdrawal from the federation, McCarron said in the March 2001 letter, there had been no indication that the federation "is seriously considering changes" that can effectively address worker issues.

"To date we do not see where the federation is ready to address those fundamental and systemic problems," the Carpenters union official said.

In one relatively recent development, union sources reported that Carpenters officials have been meeting with representatives of the Service Employees International Union, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees regarding AFL-CIO issues. Union sources said these unions support BCTD's position.

Sweeney's Dilemma

"John's between a rock and a hard spot on this issue," one building trade union president said in July. "How long can he let this go on before he begins to look weak?" He supported Sweeney and praised him for being patient regarding Carpenter reaffiliation negotiations but acknowledged that pressure from affiliates to take action was building.

"I know it's a violation of the constitution [for the Carpenters to be a BCTD affiliate but not an AFL-CIO affiliate] but I'd like to see the current situation go on a little longer," the union official said. "The disruption for BCTD and the industry would be immense," he said, if the executive council votes to enforce the federation's constitution regarding the Carpenters.

By Brian Lockett

Copyright © 2003 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.
Reproduced with permission http://www.bna.com

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