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:: Friday, July 16, 2004 ::

Divided appeals court submissive as DOL undercuts Carpenters democracy UDR #152
In rejecting the appeal of the seven complaining Carpenters, the Department of Labor held that the New England Council was simply an "intermediate" body that could elect officers by vote of delegates because its affiliated locals play "a significant role in dealing with their members.'" In this, the DOL ignores reality. Locals no longer function as effective labor organizations representing their members in collective bargaining. Their role in the New England Council --- as in all the Carpenter regional councils --- is now mainly administrative or clerical. The DOL decision completely ignores the facts of modern life in the Carpenters union.

After Douglas McCarron was elected president of the Carpenters union, the union was drastically reorganized throughout the United States and Canada into a new centralized, authoritarian structure. Local unions were regrouped into geographically sprawling regional councils, which are armed with extensive authority over a multitude of affiliated local unions. The structure and distribution of powers in the New England Regional Council of Carpenters are prescribed by that overall plan.

The Department of Labor accepts the union's designation of the New England Council as an authentic intermediate organization on the ground that the affiliated locals still have some significant independent role. But that is a constitutional fiction. Actually the "locals" have been turned into powerless administrative shells. Moreover, as a consequence of this reorganization, members have been stripped of many basic democratic rights.

posted 6:46 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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