Organizing

How We Organize

Carpenter-to-Carpenter organizing is, and always will be, the backbone of our organizing efforts. Nothing can replace carpenters talking with carpenters to spread our principles and elevated our trades. We face many obstacles in organizing, and we must use "every tool in our box" to accomplish our goals.

Our goal, to increase our market share to 70% or more in all our markets for all our trades, will allow us to set the standards for our industry.

Some of the obstacles we face include:

• Employers who misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid their responsibilities as employers

Some of the advantages we have are:

• Financial resources allocated to get the job done

• Full-time organizers in the field

• The best training programs in the industry

The different types of organizing campaigns include:

• Top down: Contractor relations and training opportunities

• Bottom-up: Building worker relationships and ownership

Each type of campaign has its own advantages and disadvantages. But together, they form a comprehensive strategy that has proven more successful than either one by itself.

Why Organize?

We organize for one simple reason - to better the lives of all men and women who work at our trades. Through organizing, we increase our market share. More market share means more strength at the bargaining table, and better contracts. Better contracts means more money in our members pockets, better health insurance for our members and their families, more money in our members pensions, better conditions on the jobsite, and through all of these, better lives for all who work at our trades.

The objectives of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters guide our organizing efforts:

To organize workers, to encourage an apprenticeship system and a higher standard of skill, to develop, improve and enforce the program and standards of Occupational Safety and Health, to cultivate friendship, to develop good public relations in the community, to assist each other to secure employment, to reduce the hours of daily labor, to secure adequate pay for our work, to establish a weekly pay day, to promote the establishment of fringe benefit plans for our members through the collective bargaining process, to coordinate bargaining toward the goal of taking wages out of competition, and by legal and proper means to elevate the moral, intellectual and social conditions of all our members and to improve the trade in every way possible.