Consolidation in the construction industry

by Charles Delgado

A presentation to the AUD national conference in New York City on April 8. The author, now retired, was business manager of IBEW Local 527 in Galveston TX 1970-1992 and ran against Charles Pillard for international president in 1982. That year, he began the battle for a secret ballot vote by delegates in the election of top international officers. Unsuccessful then, the principle was adopted by the union convention in 1996.

Consolidation takes many forms. The Carpenters establish District Councils, which eliminate many small locals, and take over powers formerly held by the locals. Agents for the restructured locals are appointed by the district. The Painters union expands the geographical jurisdiction of entire areas, eliminating local autonomy and placing the entire area membership into one large local union under the direction of an appointed business manager, who stands for reelection only at the end of his appointed term. The business manager app9ints and assigns “organizers” whose only duty, presumably, is to recruit new members. Meanwhile, the business manager travels the area to conduct meetings, negotiate contracts, etc.

The IBEW has initiated regional organizing “plans” that mandate each local to hire organizers who are then placed essentially under the direction of an international representative. Locals which are reluctant to pay for additional organizers or lack the necessary funds are summarily amalgamated into adjoining locals.

We should also examine whether consolidation has been

beneficial or detrimental to the unions as a whole. With this in mind, some brief comments:

First: Members of smaller unions who are swallowed up into large consolidated units lose their ability to determine policy and have no voice on membership rights. They immediately become a minority; and, because they are widely scattered geographically, they are inconvenienced from participating in union affairs. What little democracy may have existed in their former local is further diluted while they get accustomed to the power structure in their new local. Second: After a short time, the old locals lose their presence and influence in the communities where they had an established identity: they disappear into the larger body, usually in distant localities. Because of this loss of presence in the community, organizing new members in the area becomes much more difficult and loss of membership from the area intensifies.

What then is the rationale for the move to “Big Union Structures?” Those in power will give you a litany of reasons:

the locals’ inability to achieve goals prescribed by the international; small locals lack financial resources; large locals are more efficient. How this affects the membership of the consolidated locals is seldom a consideration. It is the same logic of a corporate CEO describing a restructuring plan to stockholders It is all about power and ego. Most constitutions give the president or his designees complete authority over locals. This unchecked power is used to intimidate and coerce local unions into following their directives, however ridiculous, or face consolidation with a more amenable local. The victimized local union gets no genuine due process.+

Construction Shorts

In Sheetmetal Local 10, St. Paul MN: Kenneth Morrissette wants to run in June for business manager of this 5,600- member local; but he thinks he has a real problem. There seem to be no reliable controls over the elections. In the six production shops represented by this construction local, he says, the members reportedly voted 100% for the incumbents in four elections in a row. That’s a big handicap for an insurgent like him.

In Plumbers Local 44, Spokane: Johnny B. Ward writes of another kind of voting problem. Of the 250-300 local members, only 25% actually vote on contracts, dues, and related matters. Members are scattered all over but cannot vote because a mail ballot is not permitted. “Only a small minority of people who work for the local companies control all business voted on.” On the other hand, it is reported, the Plumbers union is officially on record staunchly in support of democracy practically everywhere else in several continents.

Bricklayers And Allied Craftemen, Local 4, CA: Karl Woodrow got out the first issue of his newsletter “BAC to the Members” calling on members to “Demand Union Democracy.” “For the last 25 or more years,” he wrote, “the amount of democracy in our union has gradually declined....Harassing members who speak up or write resolutions...by bringing them up on phony charges must stop.” Quickly he was proven right. On April 17 he was ordered to face trial on charges of publishing “slanderous statements concerning...other members or officers

cers The local had to be reminded that processing such charges in the union is illegal under federal law. Now seems like an appropriate moment for the Bricklayers to comply with LMRDA section 105 and inform its members of their rights.

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Defending your right to vote on dues

The LMRDA gives members the right to vote on local union dues increases; but some union officials, especially in the building trades, evade this requirement by establishing district councils and turning authority over dues to council delegates.

Leon Rosenblatt, an attorney experienced in representing building trades workers, has faced this problem in court.

In discussions on consolidation in the construction trades at the AUD conference in April, he outlined a course of legal action that might help give power back to the members. In a four-page memo he writes. The law is being broken tens of thousands of times every month every time an employer deducts checkoff dues and sends the money to an intermediate body without the workers having signed a checkoff card....lf an intermediate union body acts like a local, if it

performs all the tasks which were associated with locals in 1959 when the LMRDA was passed, then it’s a local. And it must raise dues like a local by secret ballot vote.

June 2000

10

Union Democracy Review