Union Shifts and Market Shakeups Create Complex Trade Relations - McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR
The decision this year by two key construction unions, the laborers and the operating engineers, to officially disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO and its Building and Construction Trades Dept. ratcheted up long-simmering union discord with the umbrella organizations. The teamsters’ union bolted both organizations a year ago, aligning with the dissident Change-to-Win union coalition. The carpenters had left the AFL-CIO four years before.
The operating engineers’ and laborers’ departure, along with a total of 1.1 million members, was announced last February, with angry words and rhetoric flying between leaders of the individual unions and BCTD over significant market share loss, ineffective leadership and out-of-date jurisdictional rules (ENR 2/27 p. 12). The two unions announced formation of a new union organization called the National Construction Alliance (NCA), but details remained sketchy as to whether other construction unions would join them in leaving the AFL-CIO, what the new group’s mission would be and the effect on local unions.