SPURNED Painters’ Williams claims attempts to work with carpenters have been “to no avail.” (Photo courtesy of International Union of Painters and Allied Trades)

The contests put a dent in what had seemed to be improved relations between the internationals and their leaders, painters’ union President James A. Williams and carpenters’ President Douglas McCarron. “The effort to cooperate with Mr. McCarron has been to no avail,” Williams wrote to members last month.

A more far-reaching question is whether the carpenters’ union feels free to raid other union members. While it reaffiliated with the building trades unions, carpenters are still not AFL-CIO members and thus not subject to its anti-raiding rules (ENR 12/9/02 p. 11). “This wasn’t a jurisdictional dispute in Iowa but a raiding problem,” says Williams.

The painters portray themselves as one of several trades whose members have been targeted by aggressive carpenter organizers. According to Williams, the carpenters tried to gain wall finishing market share from the painters as far back as 1997 in Baltimore. They conducted similar drives in Detroit, Kansas City, Toronto, Cincinnati, parts of California and last year, in New Jersey. “It is just easier to steal what someone else has organized than do real organizing,” wrote Williams. He adds that “carpenters haven’t had any success in trying to encroach on our jurisdictions.”

McCarron could not be reached for comment on Williams’ accusations, but union officials denied engaging in raiding or anything else improper in Iowa or Nebraska.

So far, painters have prevailed in recent skirmishes where the National Labor Relations Board has ordered representation elections, with the only close vote among employees of Kennedy & Company, Des Moines. Its workers voted 18-14 on June 24 to continue to be represented by the painters. At two other Des Moines contractors, Olympic Wall Systems and Heartland Finishes Inc., a total of 31 employees voted June 30 for the painters, shutting out the carpenters.

Painters’ union officials claim that the carpenters allegedly interfered while union tapers were on strike against the drywall contractors. “It was raiding,” says Deborah Groene, business manager-secretary for painters District Council 81 in Des Moines. In a June 23 decision ordering elections, NLRB Regional Director Ronald M. Sharp says that drywall contractors had rejected the final offer by the painters’ union last May. The carpenters negotiated and signed brief agreements to move work to union Local 106, but the painters petitioned for elections.

Carpenters’ union officials say drywall contractors approached the union only after the employers had reached an impasse with the painters. “We did not interfere,” says Jim Slebiska, carpenters’ union central district vice president.

After the tapers voted in the first election to remain with the painters’ union, Slebiska says the carpenters made a decision to bow out. It would not be in the best interest of the contractors to have workers from two unions, so the carpenters “took the high road,” he says.