THE "CALIFORNICATION" OF THE UBCJA :
Sheetrockers in Baltimore and Vancouver get screwed with Southern California-style piecerates in new union contracts. Is the whole brotherhood going to Hell in a handbasket ?By Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter
The brilliant minds at the Baltimore and Vicinity District Council of Carpenters have decided to allow union drywall contractors to pay their carpenters piece rates. The DC honchos say that this is to enable the union sheetrock outifts to "compete with the non union contractors".
On the other end of the continent, up in Canada, the officers of the British Columbia Provincial Council of Carpenters, who are supposedly "reformers" and who were among the co founders of Carpenters for a Democratic Union International, also included piecework for sheetrockers in the "Lather Addendum"of their new commercial and industrial construction agreement with the CLRA.
There is a small loophole in the agreement that says that the piecerates won't go into effect unless the union and contractors agree, but that is most likely just a figleaf so the BCPCofC officers can get the agreement ratified by their members.
It doesn't seem to bother the BAs in either one of these councils a bit that the UBC was originally organized 119 years ago to STOP PIECEWORK, or that, when our wages fall, the rats cut their pay also, and it's a vicious cycle, a race to the bottom. What the contractors want, the contractors get.
Now, the justification for these concessions is the fact that the union contractors have lost so much "market share" to the rats. In the case of British Columbia, the BCPCofC claims that the CLRA union contractors have hardly any work, this in the middle of a building boom. Which I am sure is true, however, this is a sign of just what a state of decay the UBC is in today. We used to be the pace setters for labor standards in the industry, now the "merit shop" contractors are.
Par for the course in the brave new world of Doug McCarron's Corporate UBC. Where even the "reformers" are for concessions in a boom time. God knows what'll happen in the next recession ! Apparently, though, in the minds of some UBC officers, concessions are ok, because the only way the UBC can survive is as a day labor service for contractors. And, just like LaborReady or Manpower, they have to compete, and go as low as the market will bear.
In Dougie Mac's home council, the Southern California Nevada Regional Council of Carpenters, making concessions to the contractors has become a way of life. The council's membership has fallen from 45,000 in the 80's to 11,000 today. And it would probably be less than that, if it wasn't for the one spark of millitancy of McCarron's years out there, the Mexican resedential drywaller's strike of 1992.
And even those guys got screwed. After six months of fighting scabs , the California Highway Patrol and the INS with rocks and shotguns, McCarron ousted their leaders, and negotiated a contract over their heads. A piece work contract, of course.
In Southern California today, the shop steward system is all but nonexistant, contractor use of the hiring hall is optional, the few residential carpenters working under union contracts earn piece rates ( in some agreements, you negotiate YOUR OWN PIECE RATE when you go to work for a contractor, just like the non union carpenters do) and many of the 11,000 carpenters out there work non union at least part of the time.
In fact, at least one rat contractor in Southern California, Covi Concrete, has a carpenter workforce nearly entirely composed of UNION CARPENTERS WORKING FOR NON UNION RATES. The Nevada locals, [Laughlin carpenters 897, Reno carpenters 971, Las Vegas carpenters 1977, Nevada Millwrights local 1827 and Las Vegas industrial & maintenance carpenters local 1780] who, ironically, are in a right to work state, actually have a stronger union. And the dry rot has spread to Northern California, where a concessionary contract was rammed down the carpenter's throats, despite a wildcat strike against it, last spring.
Of course, New York has concessionary agreements of our own, a trend that I expect to continue in 2001, when our agreements come up. The administration of former New York District Council of Carpenters President, and now convicted felon out on appeal, Fred Devine, started the ball rolling.
In the 1993 agreements with the associations, Fred gave up double time for overtime, and now all carpenters would only get time and a half for work after 7 hours, except on Sundays and legal holidays. The DC also agreed to allow contractors to use only apprentices for the unloading and distribution of carpenter materials on jobsites, turning our apprentices into cheap delivery labor (especially on sheetrock jobs) and denying journeymen opportunities for OT.
In 1994 the NYDCofC agreed to allow Universal Builders Supply to use non union made woodwork in the construction of Barney's Department Store on E 60th Street and Madison Avenue. The Manufacturing Woodworkers Association [MWA] jumped on this concesson to UBS, and their lawyers took the DC to arbitration, and won the same privilege for the rest of the woodwork shops. Further, they were able to get the concession of being allowed to hire unlimited numbers of cabinetmakers, at the lower shop rate
The next year, Fred agreed that the scaffold contractors no longer had to hire out of the hall, not even stewards. The scaffold contractors would have "travelling stewards", one per contractor. This is not a bad idea for contractors who have many jobs, if it was designed to suppliment the job stewards. Unfortunately, it was designed to do away with job stewards on scaffold jobs.
This was good news for contractors like Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting, who like to pay cash and not pay benifit stamps. UBS's scaffold division also benifited from this decision. And two union scaffold shops, Rockledge and Colgate, took the concession one step beyond, ripped up all their labor contracts, with the carpenters, laborers and the teamsters and went 100% scab.
Also, in 1995, New York State Governor George Pataki used a force of 200 New York State Police Troopers to drive gangsters out of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Pataki was acting under orders from Freeman Decorating Company, the Dallas, Texas based firm that is the East Coast's biggest trade show GC. They wanted the theft and pilferage stopped, and, incedentally, they wanted cheap labor.
Teamsters local 807 was able to salvage many of their wages and working conditions, and the jobs of many of their trade show teamster members, from this crisis. Not so the NYDCofC, who gave up the store to the new state administration at the Javits.
The state was allowed to hire kids off the street to replace the journeymen carpenters at the Javits, which did create job opportunities for lots of women, Blacks, Hispanics and Asians, but they were used as cheap labor in place of a workforce who used to all recieve journeyman pay. Some journeymen and apprentices already in the union were hired also.
But, the "New Javits Center" had no union hiring hall, with jobs distributed by a system of pure favoritism. In place of the old situation, where gangsters got the best calls, and all the callbacks, in the "New Javits center", the friends, golfing partners and mistresses of the decorating contractor supervisors got the best calls, with nothing but scraps for the rest of the workforce. The shop steward system was also gutted, with only 2 stewards to cover the entire building, as opposed to a steward for each contractor in the building on every shift, and all hours worked became straight time, except for hours worked after 8 in a day, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
Freddie did get one "victory", he raided the jurisdiction of Expos [Exposition Employees] local 829 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Their union was ousted from the building entirely, and all their members were forced to apply for work as carpenter apprentices, no matter how long they had been Expos (a few well connected Expos did get in as journeymen)
The concession fest continued when Doug McCarron ousted Fred Devine and put the NYDCofC under trusteeship. The 1996 agreements really gave away the store. First of all, we got a 5 year agreement, the longest contract ever signed by our DC, and putting us out of sync with the rest of the New York building trades.
Contractors were allowed, in addition to the 50% company men on a job, to have every local man or woman except for the steward be a company man requested by name from the list. This made a mockery of our hiring hall system.
The New York State Chapter of the Associated General Contractors [AGC] were given a 6 year agreement, putting them out of sync with the other carpenter agreements. Also, the dockbuilders had their pay reduced by 50 cents below the wage level of carpenters, despite the fact that their work is harder and more dangerous.
The AGC, and the trade show contractors, had also long had the privilege of having an 8 hour straight time day, when most other carpenters worked a 7 hour day. Now, ALL contractors can have an 8 hour straight time day, they just have to tell the local.
The MWA, on top of what Freddie had given them in 1994, were given the right evade the hiring hall. They only have to hire a steward from a carpenter local, and the steward isn't the second carpenter on the job, but the fourth. The rest of the workforce can be all company men, and also can all be cabinetmakers, who make only $22 an hour to a carpenter's $32, and work an 8 hour day to a carpenter's 7 hour day.
The scaffold contractors, on top of what Devine gave them, had their work's jurisdiction transferred to Timbermen's local 1536, an excavation carpenter's local with a $25 an hour scale that had long had the jurisdiction over carpenters who build and dismantle construction hoists, but now have all scaffold work. The scaffold carpenters became part of a B division of LU 1536, and they get only $15 an hour. This deal was supposed to attract Rockledge and Colgate back in the union. Also, coincidentally, $15 an hour is about what Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting pays it's company men who work for cash.
All contractors can now fire shop stewards at will, all they have to do is claim that the steward is "incompetent" as a carpenter.
Now, with the exception of the off cycle Javits center and AGC agreements, our contracts will come up in just over a year.
Already, for over a year, the Association of Wall, Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of Greater New York, who represent most of the drywall contractors here, have been asking for a $25 an hour scale for sheetrockers and framers, with a $3 an hour cut in the $21 an hour benifits as well. For a while, with work being as busy as it is, and for fear of their company men jumping ship for higher paying contractors, Wall Ceiling dropped this demand.
But, with work already starting to slow down, it is quite likely that Wall Ceiling will ask for, and get, that pay cut. Also, at least one major sheetrock contractor, Component Assembly Systems, who are covered by an international agreement, has been paying a "production incentive" [in other words, a piecerate bonus] to it's carpenters, with the knowlege and blessing of the NYDCofC and the International.
So, Wall Ceiling will most likely get whatever they ask for, even if they openly ask for piecework or some kind of pay cut plus piecerate bonus deal.
And, the other sheetrock contractors, both those in the Metropolitan Drywall Association, and the big contractors like Nastasi White, who have international agreements, will get whatever concession that Wall Ceiling gets.
Also, there have been on again off again negotiations between the organizing department and the low income housing renovation general contractors in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn. The centerpiece of the NYDCofC's proposed deal ? A $22 an hour scale !
And, with the largest segement of the trade, the sheetrockers and framers, getting a pay cut, how long before we are forced to give the same deal to the other contractors; the hirise concrete contractors in the Cement League of Greater New York; the heavy and higway contractors in the AGC; the MWA; the scaffold contractors; the independent drywall, concrete, ceiling and furniture contractors; and the drywall, furniture and architectural metal and glass contractors under UBC international agreements ?
And of course, if the strong councils in the UBC, like New York; Chicago and Northern Illinois; the Metropolitan Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania Regional and the New England Regional, start making concessions like this, what does the future hold for the smaller and weaker councils?
A frightening thought.
Thats it for now.
Be union, work safe.
email Gangbox at gangbox@excite.com