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From the March-April 2009 issue of Union Democracy Review #178
In the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters:
How to eviscerate the LMRDA, but quietly
The federal law, LMRDA, has all those fine provisions designed to strengthen union democracy. But over the years union officials, guided by their attorneys, have learned how to immunize themselves against its effects and cut the heart out of some sections of the law. The latest egregious example is in the SEIU where Andy Stern used the law's trusteeship provisions to take over a 150,000-member local, remove the elected local officers who criticized him, seize its treasury, and carve up the local. In that case, trustees invaded explosively, massively, with all financial guns blazing, all in defiance of public protests. But, more representative than these events, are trusteeships imposed without public fanfare, quietly, unobtrusively, and routinely. For that we point to one small example, Pipefitters Local 211 in Oklahoma.
The international imposed a trusteeship in May 2007 and kept it in place for 22 months. In March 2009, after one member had complained to the Labor Department, the trustee abruptly announced that there would nominations in May for officer elections in June. During that 22 month interlude, the trustee removed officers including Brent Bowers, a member of the local for 33 years who had served as elected business agent for over 10 years. It was Bowers who had filed the DOL complaint.
The trustee also announced that, without membership vote, the international had voided the old bylaws and imposed a new set: no more election of business agents. The powers of the business manager were vastly expanded including the right to appoint all three business agents and the delegates to all union conferences except the national convention. The separate post of financial secretary-treasurer was abolished and combined with that of business manager. For whatever reason, an ominous clause was added: "Any member found guilty of posting or passing out political campaign literature at the Apprentice Building property shall be tried, and if found guilty, fined after notice and hearing.” [Note the double guilt in that sentence!]
The new imposed bylaws make it virtually impossible for ordinary members to process amendments. Under the old bylaws, proposed amendments would be read at three meetings and voted on at the third, with a 2/3 vote required for adoption. The new bylaws make passing amendments just as simple for a BM appointed committee. But an amendment initiated from the membership must first be endorsed by a petition signed by 10% of the membership, in this case by 300, an impossible burden in a local whose 3,000 members are scattered over many miles and where meetings are attended by fewer than 100.
It has been difficult enough for many members to attend any meeting but, Bowers reports, it is now even more difficult. The meeting time has been changed from evenings on weekends to late afternoon on weekdays.
Bowers is in federal court pro se, asking the judge to install the old bylaws and appoint a court monitor to supervise the election. Even a highly skilled inventive union democracy lawyer would find such a suit overwhelmingly difficult. A legally untutored layman doesn't have much of a chance. But the suit may provide an outlet for frustration and shake up the powers-that-be.
Other articles on the UA:
UA Local
375 hiring hall rule provides for member recourse
How
the Ironworkers and Pipefitters rig trusteeships
Hiring
hall procedures in the construction trades
The
eternal quest for fair hiring in construction
Last
year's scandal hangs over next Plumbers convention
Top
Plumbers international officers expelled
UA's
Maddaloni and Patchell ousted after disastrous pension investments in Florida
hotel
Interview
with UA reformer Frank Natalie
New voices at AUD construction
trades conference
Court orders Plumbers
and Fitters to remove anti-democratic rule
Pipefitters win
points in battle for democracy.
Links to UA member sites.
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