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M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Presidents of National and International Unions
Presidents of Trade and Industrial Departments
Presidents of State Federations
Presidents of Central Labor Councils

FROM: John J. Sweeney
DATE: March 18, 2005
RE: United Brotherhood of Carpenters

At the AFL-CIO's recent Executive Council meeting in Las Vegas, I announced that effective following the conclusion of the Federation's July Convention, unless the United Brotherhood of Carpenters have taken the appropriate steps to seek AFL-CIO reaffiliation, the AFL-CIO will take all necessary action to enforce its Constitution across the board in all related matters, as described below.

This determination was reached following close consultation with the officers and the affiliates of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, since it will potentially have a particularly significant impact on unions that share common employers, common work sites, and common job projects with the Carpenters. Other Departments, such as the Metal Trades Department, will obviously be affected as well.

This decision follows exhaustive efforts stretching over several years by BCTD President Ed Sullivan, several national union presidents, and myself to engage Carpenters President Doug McCarron about the Carpenters' concerns or differences with the AFL-CIO. These efforts met shifting and inconsistent explanations about the Carpenters' abrupt disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO in 2001 and about their concerns since then. On some occasions, the explanations offered to us had to do with per capita tax; on others, they related to desired Article XX reforms, or organizing subsidies, or the size of the Executive Council. Most recently, President McCarron has said that he is waiting to assess whether the current debate over reforms inside the labor movement is resolved to his satisfaction.

At this point, the only thing that is clear is the Carpenters' leadership's desire to have all the benefits of an AFL-CIO and BCTD affiliation throughout the country without any per-capita tax obligations to the AFL-CIO itself, without obligations under Articles XX and XXI, and without any responsibility to participate in charting the course for the AFL-CIO and the labor movement at this critical time. These are obviously unacceptable terms.

So that there will be no confusion concerning our intention to enforce the Constitution, and in order to give all AFL-CIO affiliates, trade and industrial departments and councils, state federations and other central labor bodies adequate opportunity to prepare in the event the Carpenters fail to reaffiliate by the stated deadline, I want to be clear about the following expectations:

1. The Carpenters will be barred from affiliation with all state, area, and local central bodies and trade and industrial departments and councils of the departments of the AFL-CIO, and all such bodies must expel the Carpenters and refuse to accept their per capita tax or per capita tax equivalents;

2. The Carpenters will be precluded from participating in any manner in activities, programs, operations, and affairs of all such bodies, and the AFL-CIO will exercise its best efforts to end participation by the Carpenters in all projects sponsored by AFL-CIO related funds and enterprises;

3. In full consultation with the Building and Construction Trades Department, the Metal Trades Department, and other affected affiliates, the AFL-CIO will entertain charter applications from former Carpenters District Councils or other appropriate carpenters' organizations as direct affiliates of the AFL-CIO and its departments;

4. The AFL-CIO and its affiliates will provide to each other support, as necessary and appropriate, if they are confronted with raiding or other attacks or interferences by the Carpenters.

Questions will undoubtedly arise regarding the application of some of these requirements. Please feel free to address them to my office.

Finally, in making this announcement to the Executive Council, I concluded by noting that this is a year of great debate, discussion, and hopefully progress within the labor movement. I stated that while we welcome all unions to join in that effort, at the same time we must recognize that a revitalized and growing movement is incompatible with special arrangements rewarding conduct that undermines the solidarity crucial to the serious work in front of us. Therefore, unless the Carpenters do choose to reaffiliate by that time, we will have no choice but to enforce the Constitution.

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By Mark Gruenberg, PAI, ILCA Associate Member
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney gave the Carpenters a 'drop-dead deadline,' the federation's convention in July, to rejoin the federation or be evicted from all federation affiliates, including the Building Trades Department.

Confirming a reporter's talk with Building Trades President Ed Sullivan, Sweeney said he would 'enforce the (AFL-CIO) constitution' then. It requires unions to be wholly in or out.

At the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Las Vegas, Sullivan told Press Associates that, for his unions, getting the Carpenters back 'has been a subtext of' AFL-CIO revamp talks.

When Carpenters President Douglas McCarron withdrew his union several years ago, he said the AFL-CIO needed to reform and put more emphasis on organizing. Sweeney and McCarron have talked of its return, while the union stayed in the department.

'What Sweeney has proposed shows he, too, agrees on the need for reform. It's Doug's choice, now,' Sullivan said.

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