In a speech both heartfelt and unmistakably blunt, Painters General President Michael Monroe told Minnesota building trades leaders that if unions don't get back to basics soon, the movement will see its remaining economic and political strength destroyed.

Monroe told delegates to the building trades' annual convention here July 26 that unions must aggressively organize immigrants, get leadership back in touch with membership, and quit wasting resources fighting each other.

Monroe made it clear, in statements both direct and implied, that he disagrees strongly with the decision by Carpenters general president Doug McCarron to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO.

'Help us get through this,' Monroe urged the delegates, which included Carpenters representatives attending on an ex-officio basis. 'Help us find our way. Help us make sure the right thing is done.'

'Doing all of us harm'
Monroe called the Carpenters 'the root of the building trades' and said, 'For my whole career, the Carpenters were friends to me, to my family and to my union.'

But, he said, the disaffiliation on the national level violates basic union obligations of mutual support and dependence and ignores the lessons of history.

'This does not add up,' Monroe said. 'I don't know why they're saying they're better off on their own than together. They're ultimately doing themselves, their members and all of us harm.'

Monroe defended AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney, whose priorities have been questioned by McCarron and others.

'We had a labor movement, when Sweeney took over, that had been sitting on its [butt] for 25 years,' Monroe said. 'We had lost our name. We had lost our power. We had lost our direction, our will to fight. We had lost our heart. Worse, we had lost the loyalty and understanding of our rank and file.

'We had lost ground economically and had lost ground politically.'

That has changed, he said.

'Today, we are the most effective grassroots political machine in the U.S.'

More than a second term at stake
Internal dissension threatens that progress, Monroe said, and can only help President George W. Bush and his allies gain a second term in the White House.

'They know they did not win that election,' he said. 'They know we beat them.

'They also know the race is only half won. If you think he came out strong now, what do you think he's going to do in a second term? How valuable is that?

'They cannot accomplish a second term unless they break us up.'

Working people cannot risk a second Bush term, Monroe said.

'This nation needs us more than ever. George W. Bush is the Antichrist for working folks. There's not one thing in that man's career that any good, honest working man or woman can say he did to help them.'

Wearing blinders?
He challenged his fellow building trades members to shake off any complacency that has come from the extended economic boom of the last decade.

'If we're so fat, if we're so flush, if things are so great in this country, how come - in far too many families - both parents are working?' Monroe asked. 'Not working because they want to, working because they have to. How come grandparents have to flip burgers?'

Despite economic prosperity for some, there are more unorganized construction workers than ever, Monroe said. Don't fool yourselves, he warned delegates, lower wages and a lack of health and welfare benefits for those workers will drag union benefits down.

Learn from ancestors
He said building trades unions must aggressively organize nonunion workers, especially immigrants.

'The building trades have paid a terrific price for having a country club atmosphere for too long, in which we only worked with guys who looked like us, talked like us, acted like us.'

Recalling his family roots in Alexandria, Va., in which 23 members of his family belonged to the Painters local, Monroe said, 'I understand that.

'But we were immigrants, too. We were new people looking to feed our families.

'The same thing is happening now. We've shown total disrespect to our parents and our grandparents, to our uncles and our granduncles, by not going out of our way to grab these new people, train them and assimilate them into the union movement.'

Immigrant workers, he said, are doing the same work, but often for companies that take advantage of them because they're a different color or don't speak English.

'Please find a way to individually and collectively organize and embrace these people,' he said. 'It's the best thing you can do for your members.'

This article was written for the Aug. 8, 2001, issue of The Union Advocate newspaper. Used by permission. The Union Advocate is the official publication of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.org