Building Trades Bolt AFL-CIO
It is so often true that some of the most important news never makes a ripple in the good ol’ major media. Yesterday the broadcast, print and even big time web outlets were obsessing about not being told quickly enough the adventures of our trigger happy Vice President (a classic snit about not being adequately sucked up to.) They were enjoying the mild theater of bureaucratic finger pointing over the manifest failure to adequately engage the Hurricane Katrina disaster while relegating the eviction of thousands of victims from hotel rooms as thousands of FEMA trailers sink uselessly into the Arkansas mud to minor sidebar status. And of course there was plenty of time and space available to scold Bode Miller, an erstwhile hippy Olympic skier whose combination of Zen like self possession and unfiltered stream-of-consciousness commentary offends the wining is the only thing, medal obsession of the wanna-be jocks of sports journalism.
What you probably did not see or hear was the news that the floundering ship of the AFL-CIO was continuing to break up in heavy seas and that the surviving crews in some of the life boats were trying to lash themselves together to face the storm on their own.
The media has long declared that the labor movement is irrelevant. Labor desks, once a common and important assignment in any big city newspaper or national publication, have long since been closed down. Labor stories, when they emerge at all now, are usually given to clueless neophytes who drew short straw at the assignment meeting, or worse yet are business reporters. Political reporters occasionally stop to cluck their tongues over the potential loss of money and manpower to the Democrats as the AFL-CIO unravels, never giving a split second’s consideration about what it might mean for actual working men and women.
This is what you missed because nobody bothered to tell you. A coalition of some of the bed-rock founding building trades craft unions of the AFL-CIO are formally severing ties with the old federation and launching a new National Construction Alliance (NCA.) Led by the Laborers International and the Teamsters, the new group includes the Carpenters, Operating Engineers, Bricklayers and Masons, and Structural Iron Workers. Not signing on are some important construction unions including the Plumbers and Electrical Workers.
This move follows an October split which created something called the Change to Win Coalition. That move was spearheaded by the aggressive Service Employees Union and the new UNITE HERE consolidation of hotel workers and garment workers. They were joined at the time by United Food and Commercial Workers as well as the Teamsters and Laborers. All but the Laborers officially severed ties to the AFL-CIO at the time.
Some thought that at the time the Laborers decision to simply “suspend” their association was an attempt to leave the door to reconciliation open for the AFL-CIO leadership finally came to grips with the disaster and offer substantial concessions. No real concessions were forthcoming. And it looks now like the Laborers were not trying to keep a line out to the whole federation, but just to the building trades, with whom they were closely interwoven in myriads of local Building Trades Councils.
What limited reporting I have seen does not make it clear if the new NCA will remain part of the Change to Win group or if this represents a new third force.
According to the BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH, David Penn Laborers Local 362 in the downstate Illinois city described the situation this way, “We were at the door. We had to decide whether to walk in the door or out of it. We’ve got a whole new house of labor. It will be unionism like it was a long time ago.”
What ever it will be, it will not be “unionism like it was a long time ago.” At first blush this might seem a re-assertion of old 19th Century craft unionism, but the founders are hinting at something broader. They reported that the new Alliance will “dump” antiquated union jurisdictional rules steadfastly defended by the AFL. In addition voting within the new body will be weighted by per-capita membership rather than by each union apportioned equal say regardless of size. This would seem to put the massive Teamster union and the Laborers firmly in charge over the old high-skilled building trades, once considered the Aristocrats of Labor. That the Carpenters and others are willing to agree shows their desperation as more and more construction in the US is slipping to unorganized firms.
One question is, will this new entity evolve into a quasi-industrial union for the construction industry, or will it simply try to paper over remaining craft distinctions.
Another question is exactly how militant and aggressive the new Alliance will be. Building trade unions over the years have built very cozy relationships with employers through sharing responsibility for apprenticeship programs to labor/management council joined at the hip to promote big construction projects from local, state, and federal coffers.
Signals are that this relationship will continue. As Bloomington’s Penn commented, “we’ve been talking with the contractors association since last July. They need to make a profit. They don’t need to worry about jurisdictional disputes.” The new group is talking about cross training among the crafts, a radical departure from tradition, and the establishment of composite job site crews.
The Alliance also aims to continue to cooperate with the major employers in their common fight to retain or gain “market share.” Outside major metropolitan areas many, often most, construction is now non-union. Particularly hard hit have been the Carpenters and Laborers in the homebuilding and the retail commercial construction industries. Non-union construction is now even invading big cities as powerful firms like Wal-Mart insist on non-union construction crews. The two sides have united in trying to keep the Federal government committed to “prevailing,” i.e. union, wages for Federal Contracts.
Can this unusual marriage of convenience between contractors and unions really be sustained if the NCA asserts itself as a new aggressive and militant body?
The NCA leadership has also attempted to re-assure nervous Democrats that they will not abandon traditional AFL-CIO political support. Penn reported, “Our political agendas remain the same. We have a wonderful relationship with the local and state AFL-CIO.”
The old building trades craft unions have traditionally been bed-rock supporters of big city Democratic organizations, and have been rewarded by large doses of influence over city hiring and things like building codes and inspections. Even when the high wages of many craft workers have lured their individual allegiance occasionally to the GOP and resentment of affirmative action has been high, these unions could be counted on by Democrats not only for money but for tons of volunteers for phone banks and canvassing.
The Teamsters, smarting from prosecutions by Robert Kennedy and other Democrats, drifted to the Republicans in national elections for several years, endorsing Nixon, Reagan and the elder Bush. But continued anti-corruption sweeps of the upper echelons of that union, receiverships for major locals, and an insurgent rank and file movement led, without apparent irony, by Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. have brought them back into the Democratic fold. Indeed the harsh anti-labor tenor of the Bush regime and the right-wing Congress has left them no alternative.
The big difference now seems to be that national Democrats will have to come, hat in hand, to two, maybe three national labor federations instead to traditional one-stop shopping. This might be a good thing if it compels the party to stop taking working people and their organizations for granted.
What you probably did not see or hear was the news that the floundering ship of the AFL-CIO was continuing to break up in heavy seas and that the surviving crews in some of the life boats were trying to lash themselves together to face the storm on their own.
The media has long declared that the labor movement is irrelevant. Labor desks, once a common and important assignment in any big city newspaper or national publication, have long since been closed down. Labor stories, when they emerge at all now, are usually given to clueless neophytes who drew short straw at the assignment meeting, or worse yet are business reporters. Political reporters occasionally stop to cluck their tongues over the potential loss of money and manpower to the Democrats as the AFL-CIO unravels, never giving a split second’s consideration about what it might mean for actual working men and women.
This is what you missed because nobody bothered to tell you. A coalition of some of the bed-rock founding building trades craft unions of the AFL-CIO are formally severing ties with the old federation and launching a new National Construction Alliance (NCA.) Led by the Laborers International and the Teamsters, the new group includes the Carpenters, Operating Engineers, Bricklayers and Masons, and Structural Iron Workers. Not signing on are some important construction unions including the Plumbers and Electrical Workers.
This move follows an October split which created something called the Change to Win Coalition. That move was spearheaded by the aggressive Service Employees Union and the new UNITE HERE consolidation of hotel workers and garment workers. They were joined at the time by United Food and Commercial Workers as well as the Teamsters and Laborers. All but the Laborers officially severed ties to the AFL-CIO at the time.
Some thought that at the time the Laborers decision to simply “suspend” their association was an attempt to leave the door to reconciliation open for the AFL-CIO leadership finally came to grips with the disaster and offer substantial concessions. No real concessions were forthcoming. And it looks now like the Laborers were not trying to keep a line out to the whole federation, but just to the building trades, with whom they were closely interwoven in myriads of local Building Trades Councils.
What limited reporting I have seen does not make it clear if the new NCA will remain part of the Change to Win group or if this represents a new third force.
According to the BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH, David Penn Laborers Local 362 in the downstate Illinois city described the situation this way, “We were at the door. We had to decide whether to walk in the door or out of it. We’ve got a whole new house of labor. It will be unionism like it was a long time ago.”
What ever it will be, it will not be “unionism like it was a long time ago.” At first blush this might seem a re-assertion of old 19th Century craft unionism, but the founders are hinting at something broader. They reported that the new Alliance will “dump” antiquated union jurisdictional rules steadfastly defended by the AFL. In addition voting within the new body will be weighted by per-capita membership rather than by each union apportioned equal say regardless of size. This would seem to put the massive Teamster union and the Laborers firmly in charge over the old high-skilled building trades, once considered the Aristocrats of Labor. That the Carpenters and others are willing to agree shows their desperation as more and more construction in the US is slipping to unorganized firms.
One question is, will this new entity evolve into a quasi-industrial union for the construction industry, or will it simply try to paper over remaining craft distinctions.
Another question is exactly how militant and aggressive the new Alliance will be. Building trade unions over the years have built very cozy relationships with employers through sharing responsibility for apprenticeship programs to labor/management council joined at the hip to promote big construction projects from local, state, and federal coffers.
Signals are that this relationship will continue. As Bloomington’s Penn commented, “we’ve been talking with the contractors association since last July. They need to make a profit. They don’t need to worry about jurisdictional disputes.” The new group is talking about cross training among the crafts, a radical departure from tradition, and the establishment of composite job site crews.
The Alliance also aims to continue to cooperate with the major employers in their common fight to retain or gain “market share.” Outside major metropolitan areas many, often most, construction is now non-union. Particularly hard hit have been the Carpenters and Laborers in the homebuilding and the retail commercial construction industries. Non-union construction is now even invading big cities as powerful firms like Wal-Mart insist on non-union construction crews. The two sides have united in trying to keep the Federal government committed to “prevailing,” i.e. union, wages for Federal Contracts.
Can this unusual marriage of convenience between contractors and unions really be sustained if the NCA asserts itself as a new aggressive and militant body?
The NCA leadership has also attempted to re-assure nervous Democrats that they will not abandon traditional AFL-CIO political support. Penn reported, “Our political agendas remain the same. We have a wonderful relationship with the local and state AFL-CIO.”
The old building trades craft unions have traditionally been bed-rock supporters of big city Democratic organizations, and have been rewarded by large doses of influence over city hiring and things like building codes and inspections. Even when the high wages of many craft workers have lured their individual allegiance occasionally to the GOP and resentment of affirmative action has been high, these unions could be counted on by Democrats not only for money but for tons of volunteers for phone banks and canvassing.
The Teamsters, smarting from prosecutions by Robert Kennedy and other Democrats, drifted to the Republicans in national elections for several years, endorsing Nixon, Reagan and the elder Bush. But continued anti-corruption sweeps of the upper echelons of that union, receiverships for major locals, and an insurgent rank and file movement led, without apparent irony, by Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. have brought them back into the Democratic fold. Indeed the harsh anti-labor tenor of the Bush regime and the right-wing Congress has left them no alternative.
The big difference now seems to be that national Democrats will have to come, hat in hand, to two, maybe three national labor federations instead to traditional one-stop shopping. This might be a good thing if it compels the party to stop taking working people and their organizations for granted.