AGC Midyear Meeting 2004 - even the contractors don't like mergers imposed on them by McCarron

It seems to me that McCarron is trying to consolidate the Carpenters Union out of existence. It has been suggested that we will end up with 2 Regional council, east and west of the Mississippi, with only one local per state and an 800 number to call for job dispatches. I don't like that possibility and it sounds like the contractors don't like it either............In Brotherhood & Solidarity...................Scott


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A panel of AGC representatives also provided management perspectives during the session, expressing mixed feelings about the consolidations. The panel included Mark Minter, executive director of the Arizona Building Chapter, Robert Hargate, labor relations director for AGC of Indiana, and Robert Bernius, labor relations director for AGC of Ohio, Northwestern Ohio Division.

"It is our obligation to make sure that funds are run as efficiently and effectively as possible," said McCarron. Solutions are not coming from the federal government, he stated. Based on the advice of an outside consulting firm, the UBC determined that the best way to contain rising employee benefits costs is to decrease administrative costs and increase buying power by merging funds. McCarron played a video that the UBC shows to its members about the benefits of fund mergers. According to the video, health care costs are expected to double between 2001 and 2006.

McCarron reported that the UBC has consolidated 1200 local unions and district councils into 35 regional councils. There are still 95 health and welfare funds among those 35 councils, he said, but the union is working toward reducing that number to only one health and welfare fund for each council. The union must work with AGC to make this happen, he said.

Some AGC representatives on the panel and in the audience indicated that such consultation and cooperation with management is not occurring, however.The unions must negotiate with contractor groups over the details of a merger rather than just impose the mergers upon them, said one chapter manager. Management should not just "rollover" and accept a merger just because mergers may seem beneficial in the "big picture," he said.

Bernius and Hargate spoke of the advantages that consolidations have had in their areas. In the Toledo area, the UBC merged four district councils into one about three years ago. Bernius expressed support for the restructuring and for the strong leadership shown by McCarron. The UBC also merged four Indiana district councils into one council. That council is now merging with a Kentucky council to become a single Indiana-Kentucky regional council. Joint apprenticeship and training councils in Indiana have consolidated from five to two, and the consolidation of six pension plans is now underway. A study has also been commissioned to examine the possibility of merging two health and welfare funds.

Minter reported on the results of various consolidations in Arizona. While mergers have improved pension benefits, they have not produced much benefit for health and welfare funds, he said. One reason is that health care is a locally-supplied product, and no advantage is gained from negotiating for it across a broad region. As for administrative costs, Minter estimated that merger has saved the health and welfare funds only about one-two percent. Furthermore, consolidation has left local contractors with little impact on apprenticeship program policies, as decision-making is now centralized in California. Minter also described problems resulting from mergers that join together locals in different types of markets and in places where philosophies toward unions differ. The industry is a collection of unique, local markets, Minter proffered. While consolidation might work where there are many locals in a single "natural market," it does not work across different markets. The Arizona market is not the same as the Southern California market or the Las Vegas market, he said, making the recent consolidation across those areas difficult for collective bargaining purposes.

McCarron stated that consolidation of locals for collective bargaining is needed to bargain over consolidated benefit funds. Contribution amounts and other details must be worked out at the collective bargaining table, he said.