Structural Building Trades Alliance - AFL-CIO Affiliation and Disestablishment

AFL-CIO Affiliation and Disestablishment

Pressure built in 1907 which eventually ended the SBTA's existence as an independent organization.

In January 1907, the Painters petitioned the SBTA to form a council in New York City. The union was supported by the Tile Layers and Plumbers unions. Building and construction painting in New York City was controlled at the time by an independent union. The Painters wished to strike contractors who employed workers belonging to the independent union. A local SBTA alliance in New York would mean that the other unions would be forced to honor the Painters' jurisdictional strike—bringing the superior numbers of the other SBTA unions to bear on the contractors. Unwilling to be dragged into such a conflict, the SBTA Board of Governors voted against forming a council in New York City. The Painters disaffiliated, significantly reducing the Alliance's membership and income.

Kirby could not prevent the Painters' disaffiliation, but he could try to alleviate some of the organization's other problems and thereby try to save the SBTA. Kirby met with the AFL executive council in June 1907 to discuss the conflict between SBTA and AFL local building trades councils. The AFL executive council agreed to send a delegation led by President Samuel Gompers to meet with the SBTA Board of Governors to resolve their differences. At a meeting in October 1907, SBTA President Kirby suggested that the AFL charter the SBTA, just as it would any central labor body. The idea was an old one. In 1903, AFL vice president John P. Frey had advocated that the AFL create an organization that would enable the federation to coordinate the jurisdictions, work assignments, wages, work rules and other aspects of work of its construction unions. Gompers had resisted such suggestions for several years, but Kirby's idea now seemed timely. Building and construction trade unions made up 20 percent of the AFL's membership, and Gompers could not afford to alienate them.

At the AFL convention in November 1907, a plan to issue a charter to the SBTA as a "department" of the AFL was offered to the delegates. Every AFL building and construction trade union was asked to help draft and comment on the plan. The views of observers from the Bricklayers and Plasterers, who were not at the time AFL members, were also solicited. The plan was unanimously adopted.

The founding convention of the Building Trades Department was held in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1908. Representatives from 19 building trades attended. Breaking with SBTA policy, the delegates agreed to include specialty unions (such as the Slate Roofers, the Composite Roofers, the Soft Stone Cutters and Granite Cutters). The delegates also agreed to a proportional representation scheme, with each union getting one delegate for every 4,000 members. Delegates also agreed to formally push for the creation of state and local building trades councils, although they refused to give these bodies a vote at department conventions. Finally, delegates approved a governance structure composed of a president, secretary-treasurer and six directors. Kirby was elected president, and Spencer secretary-treasurer.

The AFL issued the department's charter on March 20, 1908. The idea of departments within the AFL proved contagious. A Metal Trades Department was chartered on July 2. A Railway Employees Department (which was dissolved in 1980) was chartered on February 19, 1909), the Union Label Department followed on April 12, and a Mining Department on January 8, 1912.