Silence of the Lambs (article) by Chris L Belec-Joanet-Joannette on AuthorsDen

Many years ago, I made a promise to myself…to speak out about the wrongs this society has thought them in their education, religious, and perceived heretical moral teachings. I have always believed that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That is because speaking out has always enriched me with a feeling of piece and happiness beyond any other effect in my life.

In silence, each of us draws the face of our own fear – fear of contempt, censure, judgment and recognition, challenge of being wrong or of humiliation or annihilation.

For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it. Silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and it sometimes seems fraught with danger; danger that a mistake will be made or a word(s) misinterpreted. That visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.

This may not be the answer some of you will accept, but it is why I will continue to speak out, write and try to educate people that are willing to listen and consider the other side of the story.

I have watched the union I belong to for twenty-nine years climb into bed with Signatory Contractors for years.

They have sided with the signatory contractors more often than not when it benefited them and against them when it did not. [2] Very seldom have I seen the union protect the rank and file working members against the contractor’s abuses.

Appointed Executives, Business Agents and Organizers continue to look the other way when our contract is being violated, or even if a union member is being discriminated against. Ultimately although they were shown repeatedly that something was very wrong and the union contractors were consistently violating the contract(s). The union refused to investigate unless it would benefit them “The Administration,” not the working members. The result was that the administrators of our money were and are able to steal millions of dollars for themselves by clocking double time hours not served; or losing court cases for discrimination to the contractors against our union to the tune of millions of dollars.

The top guys in the Union Administration had to have been in on it for them to succeed in this. Some have resigned or retired to save face. But they still walked away with their monetary booty while the Rank & File working union members are losing everything.

I think this is an example of how many of today's Unions are self-serving, greedy and just as bloated with crooks and corruption as some of the signatory contractors and politicians in our cities, state’s, and across the country. I think none more so than in Chicago, Illinois, maybe because I have lived here all my life and yes have had to fight to stay in the union. There are many in this area that would have liked for me to have disappeared.

Why are so many of our union sister and brother members scared to hear the truth? They continue to lambast me and other union members for speaking what we know to be true . And would rather denounce the truth by verbalizing anti-union slogans or imagine that we are bitter against those of us who are in fact aware of what has been going on in our union and other unions of which we are proud members.

Some of my union sisters have accused me of trying to paint our General President as being corrupt. I am not trying, I am stating this as fact, and I am not alone in this statement...

Is General President Douglas McCarron the UBC, or is it the rank & file working members who elect people like him to administer and protect our rights and benefits the UBC?

The plan General President McCarron had for the carpenters union could have done a lot of good, put I have seen it turn to evil over the past five years.

And no, I will not stand up for, or turn my head the other way for dictators or evil doers in our union or the country, weather they be sister or brother. There has been a battle in our unions throughout history. Some sisters and brothers have been brainwashed to believe that truth brings division…wrong; truth brings awareness of what we must do as proud union members to survive and make the changes necessary as the times dictate.

Those sisters and brothers that have been newly appointed to a position to our executive board in the union(s) must open there eyes and minds to what is occurring to keep our unions strong and in support of the members, not the new Corporate Union Administrations in our unions, which they are now a part of. The working members must band together and organize against the corrupt self-serving greedy contractors to protect our own rights and our existing contracts before our administrators give it all away for their own greed. Our economy is the very best excuse our unions have right now to reduce our wages, give the contractors what they want; piece-work rates, and lowering the members Health/Welfare and Pension benefits.

Union members talk about how we have an illegal employee problem, where illegals are taking our jobs away from us. It’s not an illegal employee problem; it’s an illegal EMPLOYER PROBLEM! And some of our unions are continuing to give concessions to the employers to keep the illegal’s working, as long as the signatory contractor pays into the benefits for the illegals.

What don’t you understand about this? This has been documented in numerous progressive journalistic articles, union newsletters, videos, and by union members themselves...I and many others have in fact been writing about this for years. If you wish to not believe, do not read the information.

If you are the type to blame others for speaking the truth and denounce the corruption that continues to occur in our union and other unions then you in fact will not be helping to keep our union strong for the future of our working members, but for your own selfish reasons and those of the Corporate Union(s). It is not bitterness that makes someone speak out, its anger at the manipulation and pandering to the majority of its apathetic union members. Anger and sadness at what a small group of men are continuing to do to destroy our union as we have known it.

And no, it is not ALL union administrators, as some would like everyone to believe I am saying. It is only those that have been able to keep themselves in positions of power through lies, manipulation and deceit [Doublespeak].

I have always wanted to be the type of person that could pass on information in a humorous way like the union carpenter out of New York; Charles Lezette does on his website[3]. But I am not that person; I can only pass on what I know to be true and factual the best way I know how.

Everyone must think and develop there own thoughts and set there own opinions about the facts, not others opinions!

The time is ripe to organize ourselves, but we ALL must participate in our own way to save our union, without dissent of individual members about other members because of their own self interests.

I encourage my sisters and brothers to seek appointments and win elections to change our union back to what it has always suppose to have been throughout our history; a Democracy, not a Dictatorship run by one person and his administration to do what he wants at will, with no oversight from the union members’ voices or their votes.

It is mostly men that have proclaimed themselves dictators in our building trade union(s) today, but women are swiftly becoming part of the same mold. It is these people that have given the word “UNION” a bad reputation over the years to the general public.

It is only through education of what unionism is that our reputation and inequality will change. Go back in our union history to learn or remember what our brothers and sisters sacrificed to allow you the opportunity to join a union. Too many people died so we would have the privilege of being in a union. Do not allow the corporate union(s) to take that away from us!

The rank and file working members in our union(s) need to stop being the “Silent Lambs” in this country; just following its modern day corporate union leader(s)!

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Carpenters Union Shafts Members?

December 3, 2008

Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin

BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist

When it comes to union clout and political muscle, it's hard to beat the Carpenters. But Mike Prate may have done exactly that -- to the tune of $10 million.

Prate, who spent his childhood in an orphanage and foster homes, learned early to be tough. At 20, he was shingling roofs. By 1972, he opened a roofing company, Prate Installations, in Wauconda. By 2002, he had $30 million in annual revenue.

But then came the war with the Carpenters Union.

"I'm not anti-union," Prate said Tuesday, "I work with four unions every day."

Before 1998, the Carpenters allowed roofing work to be done by "the piece," that is by the job rather than by the hour. But in contract negotiations of 1998-2001, the then-head of the union, Earl Oliver, fought with Prate and others to make all companies pay hourly rates.

So Prate began paying hourly but quickly learned that Oliver and union leaders were letting some companies still pay the cheaper piecework price.

Prate raised hell. Oliver shot back that he'd put Prate -- and three other companies that protested -- out of business. It turns out that Oliver, who died not long ago, was true to his word. The three other companies were driven out of business by union pickets and other stop-work actions.

But Prate fought back and gathered evidence, went to court and ultimately into binding arbitration.

If you want to read the decision of arbitrator James P. Martin, it's a great read. Martin, who is 82 and has 44 years of experience arbitrating more than 3,000 cases without ever being reversed, wrote the following:

"Mr. Prate would be a very unlikely candidate for work as an adviser to a charm school. . . . However, his record in this matter is truly impressive: years of fighting the union, at great cost and with little success, and an indomitable determination not to be walked upon." Martin found "Mr. Prate to be true and honest," with a mound of evidence to back him up. The union leadership, he determined, "vindictively makes Prate unequal" to other companies.

After 18 days of testimony, Martin awarded Prate an unheard of $10 million in damages and gave permission for it to, once again, pay piecework.

Why? Because the Carpenters Union didn't police its own contract, played favorites with Prate competitors, and in the end shafted its own members who not only got less pay but, as a consequence, less money was socked away in their trust fund.

This notion of leaders failing their members infuriates Frank Libby, president of the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, who -- when we met last week -- said it untrue and "a vendetta on Mike's part."

As readers of this column know, I've had questions about the Carpenters' leadership ever since I reported the tale of young Andy Ryan in 2004. Ryan was a 19-year-old kid who miraculously got a $50,000 job in the Daley administration as a building inspector. Never mind that the union vouched for credentials the kid didn't have. Never mind that his dad, Tommy Ryan, was a union honcho. Never mind that three unqualified others, thanks to the Carpenters' clout, had gotten jobs with the city that should have gone to journeymen carpenters instead.

It was a scandal. It was the subject of testimony at the federal corruption trial of Mayor Daley's patronage chief, Robert Sorich.

But in the end, none of the leaders of the Carpenters Union, including Tommy Ryan, was ever fired or disciplined.

When I raised the Ryan case, Libby told me, "We didn't come here to talk about that."

The union is appealing the arbitrators' ruling. Their chances of winning, experts say are slim to none.

But the real loser?

Rank-and-file carpenters whose leadership played games, not just with Prate, but with their contract.

This could be the stuff of class actions.

Congratulations President Barack Obama & America!

YES WE DID!

[1] Excerpts (page 1) from a piece originally delivered at the Modern Language Associations’ Lesbian and Literature Panel, in Chicago, Illinois, 1977.

[2] Chicago Sun Times story by Carol Marin at the end of this commentary or go to URL: http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/1310667,CST-EDT-carol03.article , December 3, 2008

[3] URL: http://ubcnewsroom.com/user/charles-lezette

[4] Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was a leading African American civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s.