Background on United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. Massachusetts State Council
One of the largest building trade unions in the United States, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America was established by Peter J. McGuire and Gustav Luebkert in 1881 to work for collective bargaining, fairer wages, and better hours, benefits, and working conditions. Five years later, the UBCJA became one of the first unions to join the American Federation of Labor, and throughout its early years it was regarded as a militant force in American labor. The Brotherhood organized large-scale strikes in 1886 and 1890, eliciting a violent response from employers and the authorities, and the union also accepted African American members into its ranks from early on, though often only into segregated locals.
The UBCJA evolved in a more conservative direction during the early decades of the twentieth century, at times opposing industrial organizing and aligning in opposition to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies. Since the late 1980s, the Brotherhood has pursued a strategy of consolidating locals into district councils, generally maintaining its membership levels even as other unions have declined. Internal dissension and national political considerations led the Brotherhood to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO in 2001, and although they subsequently united with other unions in the Change to Win Coalition, hoping to pressure the AFL-CIO to change to facilitate organizing, disputes with other Coalition members led them again to disaffiliate from that organization in 2009.
