The building trades can continue to have an informal working relationship with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters - which has withdrawn from the AFL-CIO - while talks continue among International Union leaders to get the Carpenters back in the fold of organized labor.

A statement released last week by Building Trades Department President Edward C. Sullivan said local building trades councils "should maintain the status quo regarding all current working agreements, including PLAs (project labor agreements)." Furthermore, he said the Carpenters "may participate in Building Trades Councils' affairs only on an ex officio basis, and the councils may work informally and cooperatively with the Carpenters."

The Carpenters withdrew from the AFL-CIO on March 29, primarily over a dispute in how the labor federation spends dues money on organizing. It was the first withdrawal of a union from the AFL-CIO since 1968, when the UAW split over the federation's support of the Vietnam War.

Carpenters President Douglas McCarron said the AFL-CIO "continues to operate under the rules and procedures of an era that passed years ago." By and large, however, the AFL-CIO has put the brakes on a decades-long membership slide the last few years.

Sullivan stated in his letter that, in effect, the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department's Constitution does not provide for a union to be disaffiliated with the AFL-CIO and still continue a normal affiliation with the rest of building trades.

As a result, he said local building trades councils must not accept per capita payments from the Carpenters until the matter is resolved.

Still, Sullivan said, "we are committed to maintaining the highest possible degree of unity at every level of the Building Trades and the AFL-CIO, and we urge Councils to avoid unnecessary disharmony and to promote unified action with all unions, including the Carpenters."

When news of the Carpenters disaffiliation took place, there were numerous questions about whether their disaffiliated union members would be allowed on project labor agreement jobs such as those under the National Maintenance Agreement - which govern millions of dollars of work here in Michigan alone. Would other trades be taking on Carpenter work?

The letter from Sullivan and the Building Trades Department's Governing Board of Presidents answers that question, at least for now: there will be no sanctioned raiding of work.

Five years ago, the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council stopped paying dues to the Greater Detroit and Michigan Building Trades councils, but the MRCC and the rest of the building trades have maintained an informal relationship.