The leadership of the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council (MRCC) has opted to end a 14-year split and re-affiliate with the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, effective immediately.

In a June 8 news release, MRCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Jackson said: “We are rejoining Michigan Building Trades because they share the same mission to make unionized construction stronger. By doing this we have a stronger unified voice.”

In May 1996 the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council stopped paying per capita tax to the Greater Detroit and Michigan Building and Construction Trades Councils, effectively withdrawing from those organizations. The MRCC’s leadership at the time indicated their displeasure with council leadership as well as differences over some policy matters.

During the last 14 years the state and national construction industry have, of course, changed a bit. The leadership has changed at the MRCC and at the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, which was strengthened by a 2006 consolidation with Greater Detroit Building and Construction Trades Council as well as other local building trades councils.

Over the last several years the Carpenters and local building trades in Michigan have continued to work cooperatively in many areas, despite the MRCC’s lack of affiliation.

“The MRCC has recognized that the Michigan Building Trades have built strong relationships with the owner community and with the contractors,” said MRCC President Rich Davis.

The Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council has become a national leader in forging tripartite alliances with owners and contractors. The building trades have successfully pushed for the use of project labor agreements and has sought to position unionized construction as an owner-friendly “brand” in order to secure more work for members.

The MRCC, with more than 18,000 members, becomes the largest affiliate within the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, which now has about 118,000 affiliate members.

“We’re thrilled to have the MRCC back under the umbrella of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council,” said Patrick Devlin, secretary-treasurer of council. “They’re obviously a huge part of the unionized construction industry in Michigan, and having them back will make the unionized building trades a bigger, more influential force going forward. We’ve been talking with Mike Jackson and Rich Davis since they assumed their office after winning their election last year, and they’re smart guys who know that Carpenters and our other trades work side by side on construction projects, and we should be working side by side, too.”

On a national level, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) and Joiners of America withdrew from the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department in 2001 in a dispute over building trades leadership and how leaders spent dues money on organizing. Although informal and formal local and state alliances have been formed with other building trades – as they have in Michigan – the UBC continues to be unaffiliated with the national Building Trades Department as well as the AFL-CIO.

“Here in Michigan it was kind of like a Hatfields and McCoys thing – it was so long ago I don’t think too many people remember or care why the Carpenters split with the building trades in the first place,” said Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council President Patrick “Shorty” Gleason. “I do know that it’s great to have them back, and that we’ll be a better organization because of it.”