by Josh Soffler
(An updated version of this article will appear in the forthcoming Union Democracy Review 227)
The New York City District Council of Carpenters (DCC), which represents 16,000 carpenters and joiners across the five boroughs, is currently facing a leadership challenge. A special election is happening as the former Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Joseph Geiger, was promoted to the position of Eastern District Vice President. Joseph Geiger had held the top seat of the New York union since 2014. DCC has a long and tumultuous history of scandal, corruption and mob involvement. In 1994, following racketeering charges, the union was placed under a court-appointed federal monitor and has since seen years of internal reforms including indictments and removals of formerly elected union officials. The union is currently negotiating a deal to relieve the federal monitor of some of its oversight duties to an independent integrity officer. In the meantime, the special election is being supervised both by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) as well as the internal monitor. According to DCC, all ballots were sent out on April 9th and the results will be tabulated on May 2nd. The positions of Executive Secretary-Treasurer (EST), President, and Vice-President are all up for election. The current incumbent slate is made up of Paul Capurso, who is pro-tem EST, David Caraballoso for President, and Adam Harkin for Vice-President. The challenging slate is led by Mike Powers for EST, with Charles Bullock running for President and Douglas O’Grady running for Vice-President. Once the votes are counted, the new electees will take office until the end of 2025 where a regularly scheduled election will be held for the same positions for a four-year term. Some of the concerns surrounding this election have to do with the phasing out of the federal monitor and what that means for local autonomy and union democracy. Under the consent decree, DCC governance has included direct one-member one-vote elections of its leadership. Furthermore, it has entailed the separation of DCC from other regional councils and districts of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) at large. As the consent decree comes to an end, there is fear of a possible merger between DCC and the North Atlantic States Regional Council that could result in the loss of direct elections of union leadership in favor of a delegate-based election system. Over the last 25 years, local mergers into Regional Councils have been extremely common within the UBC. The Association for Union Democracy will report on the results of the election in our upcoming Union Democracy Review.
