Douglas J. Mc Carron - Presidency

Presidency

McCarron quickly implemented organizational reforms on a national level similar to those he had instituted in Southern California. The decision-making authority and assets of the union's 1,400 locals were shifted to 55 regional councils. In Michigan, for example, three district councils and 27 locals were merged into one regional council. McCarron and his leadership team personally appointed most of the leadership (most of them McCarron loyalists), although elections eventually occurred. Local members were stripped of the right to elect business agents and vote on contracts, and permitted to elect only regional delegates. Regional delegates now elected only the district council secretary-treasurer, and the secretary-treasurer appointed the local business agents. Even district councils were not immune to merger, as district councils in Michigan, New England, New York, Oregon, Utah and Washington were merged into large regional councils. McCarron also stripped authority over organizing, political action and union assets from locals, placing it with district or regional councils instead.

McCarron demolished the union's four-story headquarters across the street from the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., and built a 10-story office building in its place. He also built a $100 million training center near Las Vegas, Nevada, and increased training programs at 180 smaller centers throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The changes did not come without cost. Dissident locals, including large ones in Atlanta, Georgia, and San Francisco, California, were trusteed on (allegedly) thin evidence. In 2001, carpenters in the British Columbia Provincial Council of Carpenters voted to disaffiliate from the international union in protest against McCarron's actions. McCarron called the council communist-dominated and argued it had lost too much market share to survive. By 1999, angry union members had formed Carpenters for a Democratic Union to challenge McCarron's actions and unseat him as president.

In August 2000, McCarron won re-election with more than 90 percent of the vote. The election of 2000 was held at the General Convention, with the delegates elected by their locals across the United States and Canada voting in a secret ballot election, held in accordance with Department of Labor Rules and the Unions own constitution. He was reelected in 2005 and again in 2010 where he ran unchallenged.