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Carpenters end jurisdiction pacts

Date Posted: June 10 2005

The "gloves are off in the fight over jurisdiction," the Construction Labor Report said last month, as the International Brotherhood of Carpenters canceled work assignment agreements with the Iron Workers and Sheet Metal Workers International Unions.

Citing the inability of the unions to update jurisdictional agreements, Carpenters President Douglas McCarron, in a letter to Iron Workers President Joe Hunt, ended a 40-year-old agreement between the unions over the installation of conveyors, as well as rigging, window and door installation pacts, which were hammered out in the 1970s.

The Carpenters president said in ending the agreements "our union contractors will be more competitive and the members of both of our organizations will gain market share."

McCarron sent a similar letter to Sheet Metal Workers President Michael Sullivan, canceling an agreement over defining which craft installs suspended metal ceilings with components including grills, diffusers, and air handling slats. Sullivan called it a "bad message to send to owners."

Hunt said in a letter to the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) - which has a huge interest in seeing that job harmony is maintained among trade unions - that the Sheet Metal Workers' agreements with the Carpenters, "while not perfect, have done much to weld our two crafts into a cooperative, efficient team, providing our contractors and customers with a workforce tailored to their needs."

The "last thing" corporate owners need, Hunt said, "is the removal of agreements that provide harmony on the job." He added that the Carpenters' "attempt to grab market share without considering the impact on our customers is inconsistent" with the mission of the labor-owner-committee established by CURT.

The Carpenters, like several other unions, have dropped their affiliation with the AFL-CIO, primarily in a dispute over leadership direction and the spending of dues money on organizing. They have remained aligned with the AFL-CIO's Building Trades Department, but have been warned by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney that they must start paying dues to the labor federation by July or get kicked out of the Building Trades Department.

The Michigan Regional Carpenters Council dropped their affiliation with the Detroit and Michigan Building Trades Councils in 1996.

(Source: Construction Labor Report)