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
COMPROMISED WORK POOL
 

 

to replenish our Unions
Work Pool
again. No more requests, no more shaping jobs, nomore

our forgottenmembers. Its time every member be dispatched from the Out Of Work List. It works for otherunions and it would work for the future of our union.

 During this current economic recession and debacle of our NYCDCC leadership, it has exposed someof what has been missing in our union. The Emperor has no clothes on and no one dared to opentheir mouths to say he was naked! For many years of compromised contracts, our union has beenkilling itself from the inside out. Some of our leaders have turned their backs on the working menand women of our great union.

someone joins a union they are hoping to get a job. They try to accumulateenough work hours to get benefits and secure a fair wage to support their family. If you work enough on the tools, you hope to learn a trade so that a contractor will want to hire you for yourskills and you can represent what good union labor can achieve. The other extremely important factor is representation on the job. You trust your leaders are truly out there for your benefit and toprotect you and the future of the industry that you decided to enlist in. These are some of thefundamental reasons people join unions. If President Obama gets universal health care for all, what will it do to the way we receive our medical benefits? This means that the non-union sector willalso receive medical benefits, which is why many people join unions. They need the benefits! What will define the difference

for ten months a year orgo to work for the non-union sector? If not the solidarity, safety training, representation and a fairlydistributed work force, then what?Recent contracts were allegedly put together with our past regime to be in collusion withunscrupulous contractors. Some of our benefits and welfare trustees have also been accused of taking advantage of the sweat of the work force by making sweet deals with contractors. All betsshould be calle

Our trust has beenviolated and our union is at serious risk. The deep-seated element of our union strength lies in thewords
United Brotherhood
. Have we have drifted away from the very core of what is part of ourunion and its mission?With assistance from high paid contractor lawyers with agendas, some of our leaders have turned ablind eye and given a wink. The Out of Work list has become a farce. They have assisted in makingmany contractors enormously rich and keeping other good union contractors really trying tocompete, on the outside. Better cigars and nicer shoes. Same bids on jobs but finished faster andbetter with our most skilled mechanics they keep in their pockets. They have been able to select the

This is a form of discrimination when only the ace workers and easily manipulated members get to work. Allcarpenters should be dispatched from the OWL fairly.

ajor league baseball teamhas unlimited funds and influence; they can draft all of the greatest players in the league! Of course
 
2they will profit more and be in the World Series every year! These hand picked players/workerskeep quiet and work steady, most never missing a day or ever visiting the OWL. This is preciselythe cancer in our union that has gone long undiagnosed. Can you believe that there are membersout there that have never been on OWL in all the years in the business? We must resuscitate our out of work list. Our OWL

list. If it is not changed now we will never again get back the feeling of solidarity that I remember was

example of how we have strayed away from the fundamental policies that are at the core of oursurvival. When we have three different sources for workers dispatches on our current stewardreports, we have ignored the power of our work force. There would be no need to police the OWLand bring members up on charges. We spend a lot of wasted money on hearings and punishment taken against our own members. We could eliminate a lot of the actions taken from the bi-productsof an unfair OWL. This is coming from the inside out. Not the outside or the non-union sector. Ibelieve this is also one reason why we are having such problems with keeping our apprenticesinterested and showing up on our jobs today. They can feel it when they see members interact onjobs. They are very smart and are the eyes of the future.
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a dog eat dog and no solidarity, whyshould I stick around?

not the craft I wanted to learn

let your integrity be compromised. Would you stick around if you were new to the business?It is time to change the old script and start with a new method. The old script obviously does not work for all members. We must not let any source dilute the strength of our work pool. If ourrequest system was based on a 90% union and 10% company ratio, all of our members would start to feel like one union.
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worker and only a unified workforce. If all members knew in advance, that they would be returning to the OWL, they would stick togetherand support each other and not stick their head in the sand like an ostrich. They would help eachother, teach, respect and raise the level of comradery that has been missing in our union. I find it hard to believe that all t 

bad. Their heads have been in the sand because

have been forced to follow. The emphasis has been in the wrong place. Wemust remove the competition from company/requested w

ers.This will help to make even more skilled workers available for all contractors to have dispatched totheir jobs, not just the big companies with connections. All companies should have the sameadvantage to work in our industry.

We

get a qualified worker from t 
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skilled workers and requested them from job to job, never to visit the OWL. They are basicallypicking all the fruit from the tree and leaving the tree, our work pool, bare. Many workers fromoutside the New York City region love to complain, work through lunch and try to get the early trainhome! These selfish outsiders take from our tree and wont even participate and do picket duty!They look down on the OWL members and make fun of our dedicated stewards.
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to our NYC members before we fill up the pockets of ungrateful guests, especially during ourcurrent economic situation.When these company paid lawyers go into court with their interests, who are to benefit theemployer, not the union, we are at a huge disadvantage. They would love to see the request systemforever! When the union sides too much with the companies like what has been occurring, the linein the sand of labor has been wiped away. Yes, the contractor must make a living but not on the

resources to pick from. Our work pool is in the

workforce and our most important commodity

our labor and without our hard work, no one makes a living. Of course we want the
 
3contractor to prosper but our whole membership should also participate. We have many skilledworkers and many who would like to learn to be a proud member of the Carpenters union.The answers to our problems lie within our membership. If our leadership had truly listened to thecries of its OWL membership over the last ten years, something positive could have beenaccomplished. Instead,

collusion between

, benefitstrustees and our leadership. Imagine our OWL if the Judge and courts

t get involved! Most delegates and workers at the council have had to have seen the on going problems.

where they doing the job they were supposed to be doing? They

interests and steady
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
It is time for honorand responsibility to steer the ship away from the rocks.If we stopped all requests, shaping jobs and foreman and friends manning the workforce, our unionwould start to come back. Brother and sisterhood would really mean something. You can feel theseparation on the job sites

. Weare all union and we all should step up and start to act that way! Local 3, Electricians use this format of 90% to 10% as well as most other unions in America.
 
ituted thelong overdue furlough system?

see what has been going on? If members know we are allin this together, we will all start to recognize it in our union. Perhaps the members who join thework pool will start to feel it is important to unite

forget your pension! We

member participation. We must stop penalizing our members and change the script. You will get catch more bees with honey, not vinegar.When we, as members realize, we have been hypocrites by the way the OWL has conditioned usinto looking out for our own benefit, not the union as a whole, we will grow into a productivecommunity. The OWL is conditioning us to separate from each other and is precisely why our unionis dissolving from the inside out. The contractor has taken full advantage of this posture the unionhas assumed. We have followed the script and its time for a new one. It is a cancer and it is time toget help. The answers we seek are from within. If we had true leaders who would just listen to thecries, and change the OWL to 90% to 10% ratio, we would see an immediate change.
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stop theexcuse saying

the Consent D

We have had the OWL in our union for years and no one hasreally challenged it with new fresh ideas that would truly help. They only dealt with what has beenconveniently presented in the past by our alleged corrupt leaders so they could fill their pockets,not ours. I honestly believe that any Judge would approve what the working members need if wetell them, not people who are out for themselves. Next time we go to court, make sure you show upat 500 Pearl Street and voice your concerns. I have been there and only four or five carpenterswould show up. All members should be notified, by mail when these hearings are called. In the past,the council lawyers were always surprised and mad to see even the few carpenters in the back of the courtroom. What do you think the Judge would think if there were a couple of hundredconcerned carpenters in the courtroom, halls and outside the building in support of a real change tothe Consent Decree? Hon. Charles S. Haight always thanked the carpenters for attending the court hearings.We have been forced to follow a stale screenplay that has not changed for the better and only hasbeen tweaked, when necessary to help certain people cheat and remain in their high salariedpositions. Everyone at the Council should be fired and then re-interviewed. We will uncover theincompetence and nepotism that Mr. McCarron has tried to weed out many years ago. People
of 00

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