Commentary on The UBCJA

By Anonymous

The pros, at their head is a guy who has created a system which ensures that he cannot be voted out, in third world countries the international watch dogs usually consider any election in which there is only one candidate for a lucrative and influential position to be a good indication of corruption.

No one in the carpenters union is curious as to why it happens in our union on every level.Just in case I am wrong about everyone knowing, it is because,in this union, losing an election is like having sex with a black widow. The victor will do everything they can to destroy your career to ensure that you are not there in the next election cycle and to show other members that opposing them has consequences.

You may have noticed the entire lack of anything in your mailbox regarding the convention. This only occurs every 5 years,in other words,they are going to be making decisions which will impact us for the next five years and we have no idea of what is on the agenda. Of course the only ones who do know are the incumbents, or in other words, since everyone knows that they are going to be reelected, there is no need for anyone else to know what should be discussed. I mean what would happen if the incumbents lost? We would have a couple of thousand delegates with no idea of what they were supposed to be doing. The entire convention is orchestrated in advance by the incumbents as one huge, expensive  confirmation that all is rosy in McCarron land. It would seem unlikely that if anyone other than the incumbent won that they would want to have the delegates sit through a couple of days of McCarrons propaganda.


Lets just consider McCarrons track record.

1. Admitted to self dealing from union funds. Claimed that he only admitted to this to help the union. Should not be allowed to hold any elected position within any union as a direct consequence of this crime and yet he is still there.

2. Was on the payroll of Perini construction while holding office in the union. In New York, that is what is known as a bribe and most of our guys are going to jail for that.  In McCarron land, it is not a problem.

3. Union membership has reached dangerously low numbers under McCarrons leadership. In spite of raiding other trades, including the painters, laborers, electricians and iron workers, the total number of members in our union has dropped. Since these numbers also count members who are retired, and since there is a higher percentage retired now than when McCarron took power, this means that we have a lot less working members. In NYC, over 50 percent of our members are retired, leaving around 14,000 active members.

4. Many of our apprentices are in their forties. This to me would indicate that young people do not consider the union to be a good career choice.

5. Has turned a blind eye to corruption. He was contacted on the matter of  Thomassen and Sheil  collecting a pension to which they were not entitled to from the union. This made the two candidates ineligible, he was aware that Forde was aware of this self dealing by his two running mates as Forde himself had asked McCarron if it was acceptable within the UBCJA to rape the pension funds.  Hindsight being 20/20, if McCarron had done his job, NYC would not be under supervision. Some fxxxing joke, huh?

6. Has been found to not be acting in the best interests of union members in the UBCJA in several courts.

7. Loves to merge local unions,  does so with a system which is remarkably like G.W. Bushes (McCarron is a huge fan)  approach to dealing with foreign nations. Invade, conquer and then……..  The plan ends.  Mccarron has merged locals from one end of NY with locals at the other end, has organizers traveling hundreds of miles day to sign in, appoints people to run these locals who seem to be corrupt more than would seem possible if he were not doing it on purpose,  does not consider himself responsible when the whole thing goes to shit as it did in NY State and NYC. Went to court to try and make the courts agree with this stance.

8.  Is a master of propaganda, according to McCarron, the UBCJA’S  democracy is similar to that of  the United States, he can say this with a straight face too.

Similar:
(a) Delegates are elected by members to make decisions on their behalf.

Members of congress are elected by the people to make decisions on their behalf.

Different:
(a) The executive treasurer is in control of all salaried positions in their District Council. Only the Executive Treasurer  can hand out high salaried positions. Unremarkable, you will find that over half of the delegates in any area hold appointed positions.

The President of the United States has no such power.

(b) The delegates elect the EST.  It would seem to many that the delegates will choose someone who will appoint them to a high salaried position as opposed to choosing someone who will work to better conditions for all members.

The president of the United States is elected directly by the people.

(c)  The EST directly controls livelihood many delegates,  going against the EST could cost you your job.

There is no such authority either allowed nor present in the United States Government.

(d) You cannot run for position of EST without being a delegate as only the delegates can nominate a member for election at a delegate meeting at which only delegates are allowed to attend. And you must be present at the meeting to be nominated according to the UBCJA constitution.

Anyone can run for President of the United States if they are a citizen.

(e) Delegates votes are not recorded, a member has no way of knowing how any delegate voted on any issue. So there is no accountability placed on the delegate and nothing other than the personality of the delegate to base reelection votes on.

Congressmen’s votes are recorded and often used during reelections.

(f) There is no public record kept of whether a delegate even bothered to go to a meeting.

There is a record kept in congress.

(g) Delegate meetings are not public and what is discussed is usually unknown to most members. What is known is tightly controlled by the officers.

Congress is broadcast to anyone with a television.

(h) The UBCJA does not want members to vote.

The Federal Government has voting drives.

Now McCarron choose Walsh, Walsh was in NY  before and couldn’t find anything. Mack comes in and has trouble just keeping all the crimes documented. Walsh is back, why? His record of finding anything would not seem to warrant it, why not one of Mack’s investigators?

They also bring  Mack back in a different role, why? To try and offer some credibility to the whole thing?

Is it not madness to bring in all these people who have been here before (the feds, McCarron, the UBCJA, Walsh)  and somehow expect a different result?