Organized Labor

In an earlier column I mentioned a book by Grace Palladino, Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits (Cornell University Press, 2005). Ms. Palladino tells the story of the BCTD from the steps leading to its founding in 1908 to the start of the present millennium. In that history a BCTD in which all the Trades are members is more the exception than the rule.

At its beginning, for example, the Bricklayers and the Plasterers were not in. By early in the next decade, the Plasterers were in, then out again briefly, then in again. The Bricklayers joined in 1916. In 1927 they left. In 1934, frustrated in an attempt to rejoin, they combined with seven other unions to form a rival Department. The competing Departments eventually worked through enough of their differences to reunite, and so in 1936 the Bricklayers were back in. Expelled by the AFL-CIO in 1957, the Teamsters were out of the BCTD on the national level, although they retained many local council affiliations. In 1987 they were back in the BCTD.

These are just examples, not meant to single out particular unions; other examples abound. The encouragement they provide is that the BCTD and the union movement in construction have survived all the comings and goings. The discouragement is that withdrawals have resulted again and again from two sources, jurisdictional disputes and disputes over the way in which voting power is allotted between large unions and small unions in BCTD deliberations.

These sources in turn arise at least in part from the way in which our unions have evolved, as representing particular sets of skills in an industry in which skill requirements are always changing. Workers with the same or similar skills understood each other’s work and its challenges. They worked for a certain set of companies. They formed natural combinations – bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters – and the organizations that resulted developed a habit of autonomy. Then, as new methods of construction were invented, they generally bore some relation to what more than one trade had traditionally taught or done, so that more than one trade could make a case reasonable to its members that work under the new method belonged to it and it alone – and its members obliged it to make this case.

From the beginning some sets of skills were more commonly needed than others, and so some unions were larger and some smaller. Changes of working methods or even of taste over time contributed also to the growth of some unions and the shrinkage or disappearance of others. At one time there was a union in this Council that represented tin cornice workers. It hasn’t been heard from in a while.

Variations in membership between unions, long-held autonomy, and the continual introduction of new work methods – the table was set for a messy banquet, and for course after course food has been flung, wine spilled, chairs knocked over, napkins used to stanch cuts.

At the end of January representatives of local and state building trades councils, including myself, were called to a meeting in Las Vegas. We knew before arriving that nothing had yet been worked out with regard to the re-affiliation of the Carpenters and the Teamsters with the BCTD. We learned when we were there that the Laborers and the Operating Engineers had cut their per capita payments to equal that of the smallest International affiliated with the BCTD, the Roofers. International President Ed Hill of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, General President William Hite of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, and General President Michael Sullivan of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association have been delegated by BCTD President Ed Sullivan to meet with the Carpenters, Teamsters, Laborers, and Operating Engineers to find a way for them to stay at or come back to the table.

As by the knowledge of the BCTD’s history, we can be both discouraged and encouraged by the knowledge that the sources of our conflicts are structural. We would be discouraged if we allowed ourselves to believe that structural difficulties were irreparable. We can be encouraged because we have seen that reasonable men who have identified structural difficulties can address them in reasonable ways; this is how we have our country and our Constitution. Union contractors and the owners who use them worry that we will not succeed. Our enemies hope that we will not succeed.

Grace Palladino will be addressing the twentieth anniversary program of the Labor Archives and Research Center of San Francisco State University on February 24 at the union hall of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 38, 1623 Market Street. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served at 6:00 p.m. The program begins at 7:00 p.m.