The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America has dissolved its St. Louis-Kansas City Regional Council and merged the union locals into its Chicago Regional Council.
The restructuring leaves the Chicago group with more than 50,000 members across Illinois, Missouri, Kansas City and eastern Iowa, according to the union’s announcement.
It also leaves Al Bond, the executive secretary-treasurer of the St. Louis-Kansas City branch, ousted from his position, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch报告。好d couldn’t immediately be reached and a local union spokesperson didn’t respond to inquiries about the restructuring.
The St. Louis union has been heavily involved in local politics, giving thousands of dollars to politicians via a PAC in recent years, politics donations-tracking website OpenSecrets shows. And the union has put its weight behind failed proposals to merge St. Louis’ city and county governments and to privatize St. Louis Lambert International Airport. That led to speculation among some that politics may have played a role in the decision to remove Bond.
Douglas J. McCarron, carpenters' general president, said in a statement that the change was made in order to increase operations oversight, reduce costs, maximize resources and to increase market competitiveness.
工会在麦卡伦的领导下定期将其其他地区和区域委员会合并，经常引用类似的原因。
2011年，它合并了帝国州立木匠区域委员会和新泽西州木匠区域委员会，以组成东北地区木匠委员会。大约五年后，总部位于费城的大都会区域委员会被解散，其工会当地人在NRCC下合并。然后，在2018年，UBC解散了东北理事会，并将其当地人分开在新英格兰理事会之间（现在更名为北大西洋州区域委员会）和Keystone + Mountain + Lakes Rakes Council，该理事会被称为宾夕法尼亚州地区理事会，直到它吸收几年前，来自弗吉尼亚州马里兰州，弗吉尼亚州和北卡罗来纳州的当地人。
Even the St. Louis-Kansas City Regional Council of Carpenters was the product of a 2010 merger between the union’s prior St. Louis and Kansas City area district councils. Bond led the regional group since 2015.
This restructuring won’t affect current bargaining agreements, including wages and benefit contributions, Gary Perinar, executive secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Regional Council said in a statement.
Perinar added that the move would make the union stronger.
佩里纳尔说：“这种重组提供了真正的机会，将我们的市场份额扩大到超出我们70％的目标之外。”“这对我们的签名承包商来说是一场胜利，这是我们生活和工作的社区的胜利，最重要的是，这对我们的会员来说是胜利。”
