Amid building boom, carpenters union consolidates in Pittsburgh

Over the years, the carpenters union headquartered near Pittsburgh grew into a regional council whose name evokes the wide geography: Keystone Mountain Lakes RegionalCouncil of Carpenters.

On Wednesday, the council got a lot bigger.

The national union announced it will dissolve the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters and merge its 40,000 members into the Keystone Mountain Lakes Regional Council of Carpenters and the New England Council of Carpenters.

The merger comes as unions across the spectrum look to combine resources and keep pace with employers sitting across the negotiating table. More unusual, the carpenters union merger also was driven by the need to keep up with the booming construction industry nationwide and to appease construction contractors who employ them on major

projects.

“It was a question of where the contractor associations were heading,” said Tricia Mueller, a spokeswoman for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Washington, D.C.-based union that oversees the regional councils and announced Wednesday’s merger.

“We want to make sure our employers are as competitive as possible,” said Ms. Mueller, who spent 16 years as political director for the now-defunct Northeast council. “It’s not so much about leverage as about being good business partners.”

The move reflects the intertwined fortunes of companies and labor in the building trades — and points to this region’s carpenters council as a national model.

For much of the last year, construction has been the fastest-growing major industry in the Pittsburgh region amid a building spree that includes new hospitals, offices and apartment complexes and a $6 billion chemical plant in Beaver County that is expected to require 6,000 workers at peak construction.

In 2017, construction jobs grew 11 percent, with companies hiring 5,300 workers over the year to bring employment to nearly 55,000 people by the end of last year, according to the state labor department.

The Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania, a nonprofit representing 16 building trade unions and six contractor associations, anticipates needing double the number of apprentices in coming years. In Western Pennsylvania, unions and companies partner to spend more than $30 million each year on training at the region’s joint apprenticeship training centers, according to the guild.

The carpenters have heavily promoted the need for more workers, building its gleaming apprenticeship training center in Collier, a landmark for motorists driving along the Parkway West.

In September, the union hosted U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta at its training center to “see the work the [United Brotherhood of Carpenters] is doing to train the most skilled craftsmen in the industry,” the union said in a news release.

Keystone Mountain Lakes revenue stood at about $29 million and expenses about $27 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, according to tax filings. It reported assets of about $132 million.

The union has recently caught the public eye with disputes.

In January, after a Chicago-based construction company was brought on to help build a golf facility near Bridgeville, the union bought a billboard along Interstate 79 that criticized the Dallas-based developer for hiring out-of-state labor.

“Shame on Top Golf ‘FORE’ driving local wages down!” the billboard stated.

While Ms. Mueller emphasized that the merger will not affect rank-and-file carpenters at their job sites, she said there was a clear need for a change among leadership.

Philadelphia’s labor world was jolted in early 2016 when Edward Coryell Sr., the longtime leader of the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters and a prominent player in state and regional politics, was ousted from the position. His departure came after the United Brotherhood of Carpenters decided to merge the council’s 17,000 members and their union locals into councils based in Pittsburgh, as well as in New Jersey and Massachusetts.

At the time, people close to Mr. Coryell said he was blindsided by the decision, which the United Brotherhood described as a move that would increase union bargaining power and benefit workers. Nonetheless, it was viewed by some as the end of a storied — if at times complicated — time in Philadelphia’s labor history.

Mr. Coryell and his union were instrumental in helping to bankroll major, statewide campaigns over the years, cementing their clout in state political circles. But the council in the past few years of Mr. Coryell’s tenure made headlines for its refusal to sign onto an agreement to work at the Convention Center in Philadelphia, leading to a lengthy and ugly legal dispute.

In the more recent change, the union decided to merge the Northeast council — which was based in Edison, N.J., and included members living in Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and eastern Pennsylvania — into the two other regions after a comprehensive report that studied the economics and market analysis within each council, Ms. Mueller said.

“This is not just something that happens overnight,” Ms. Mueller said. “It was a decision that was based on economics, leadership capacity and council capacity.”

It is unclear how the merger will play out. Ms. Mueller said the immediate priority is ensuring all offices remain staffed properly and the unions operate business-as-usual. She would not discuss the possibility of layoffs as a result of the merger but said that if two jobs were considered repetitive, employees could be required to re-interview for their position at union offices.

Calls to officials with the Keystone Mountain Lakes Regional Council of Carpenters were not returned. The executive director of the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania could not be reached.

A representative for the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters declined to comment, referring questions to Ms. Mueller.

On Wednesday, the Northeast council’s website — a new version of which was launched just last month — displayed only a letter from Michael Capelli, a vice president with the national union.

“Progress is impossible without change,” Mr. Capelli wrote. “The Regional Councils are working hard to limit the disruption that usually comes with change, so every precaution is being taken to make this consolidation as smooth as possible for everyone.”