It’s decision time again for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The AFL-CIO Executive Council has given the 530,000-member union until the labor federation’s July convention to decide whether it will re-affiliate or risk being ousted from the building trades department.

Safe Sweeney (center) and supporters survived challenge. (Photo by Tony Illia for ENR)

The stakes are high, both for carpenters’ President Douglas J. McCarron and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. McCarron’s disagreements with Sweeney’s leadership philosophy, especially on organizing, led the union chief to withdraw from the AFL-CIO in March 2001 (ENR 4/9/01 p. 10).

The labor federation’s constitution requires affiliation if a union wants to retain membership in an industry division, such as the Building and Construction Trades Dept. (BCTD). The carpenters left that group for about a year, but cut a deal to return in 2002. Then, AFL-CIO and BCTD leaders hoped that ongoing negotiations would eventually bring the carpenters back to the federation.

But now Sweeney, who faces reelection in July, is having disagreements with other large unions over organizing and grassroots political programs. As an internal clash grew over the past year, numerous reform plans were offered including proposals by the laborers, teamsters and service employees unions. At the March 1-3 winter meeting of the AFL-CIO’s Council in Las Vegas, Sweeney’s supporters, led by Gerald McEntee, head of the public employees’ union, and steelworkers’ union chief Leo Gerard, fended off efforts to slash the federation’s budget by $35 million and return funds to individual unions for organizing.

The measure’s chief supporters, including laborers’ union chief Terence M. O’Sullivan and Service Employees International Union President Andrew L. Stern, vow to try again at the July convention. "We’ll keep fighting until we win," pledges Stern, who has threatened to withdraw his 1.8-million union from the AFL-CIO if changes are not made. Instead, labor leaders endorsed Sweeney’s plan to return 17% of dues, or $15 million, to underwrite organizing efforts. Sweeney also succeeded in nearly doubling spending on political and legislative programs to $45 million.

It’s too early to tell if these changes are enough to appease McCarron. It would take "seriously substantive issues" for the carpenters to return, says a union spokesman. But Sweeney has vowed, fueled by pressure from his slim margin of support, to uphold the rules that bar department membership without affiliation. "It’s critically important to have [the carpenters] at the table with the [BCTD]," says the laborers’ O’Sullivan.

BCTD President Edward C. Sullivan says the decision remains McCarron’s. But many of the reforms he seeks "have already or are in the process of being resolved within the federation," Sullivan points out.