Douglas J. McCarron
Encyclopedia
Douglas J. McCarron is a labor union
activist and, since 1995, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
.
in a supermarket
. While still in high school, he married and had a daughter. Dropping out of high school his senior year, he took a job as a construction worker, hanging drywall
. He quickly joined the carpenters' union.
In 1980, McCarron was elected president of his local union. He was named to the negotiating team of the Southern California Council of Carpenters, a regional body covering contractors and other employers in 11 counties. During this time, he came to the attention of leaders with the national carpenters union.
In late 1984, McCarron was named a trustee of the Southern California Pension Fund, the carpenters' union retirement fund. In late 1985 and early 1986, McCarron discovered that $130 million in loans to construction companies were delinquent but no action had been taken by the other trustees. Working with Ron Tutor, a construction company owner and co-chairman of the fund's board of trustees, McCarron and others filed a federal civil suit alleging that the pension fund trustees had made sweetheart loans to employer trustees, masking the loans as investments. Several of the construction projects had failed, with the fund suffering significant losses. The suit was settled out of court 1989 when insurance companies representing the trustees and construction companies paid the fund $30 million. Under the terms of the settlement, all the defendants agreed to immediately and permanently resign from the pension fund's board.
McCarron's relationship with Tutor was not without controversy. In 1993, the carpenters' pension fund made a large investment in a company which held televised boxing
matches at a Palm Springs, California
, hotel owned by the fund, and a $40 million investment in a company that supplied nearly all the concrete for one of Tutor's construction companies. The value of the latter investment declined by 31 percent, leading union members to call for a federal investigation.
McCarron quickly began merging locals, sometimes through elections and sometimes through trusteeship. In 1988, he forced 18 Southern California locals to merge, leaving only four large ones. Using the union's trusteeship powers, he appointed new leaders to the newly-merged locals and transferred most of their assets to the district council. The mergers caused heated political and legal battles. Five locals sued to stop the forced merger in federal court, but lost.
International union officials, who had already consolidated the number of union locals to 1,466 from 2,200 since 1978, sided with McCarron, and the wave of consolidations continued.
Some union members questioned McCarron's motivation for the mergers. For example, in 1991, several carpenter locals in Orange
and Riverside
counties were trusteed. The locals were forcibly merged into a new affiliate, Local 803, which was in turn supervised from McCarron's Los Angeles
offices. In 1992, carpenters' international union president Sigurd Lucassen
and McCarron ordered a snap one-day election to select new Local 803 leaders. Nominations and the election were held on the same night. Of the 3,400 active and retired members eligible to vote, only 140 did so. Union members appealed the election results to the international union, which rejected the complaint. The union members then complained to United States Department of Labor
(DOL), arguing that union officials were trying to use the election to tighten their control over Local 803. A federal judge agreed, noting that Lucassen and McCarron had violated federal labor law and the union's own constitution.
had retired unexpectedly on December 31, 1979. William Konyha
was elected to replace him on January 1, 1980, winning the regularly scheduled presidential election in August 1981. But Konyha served little longer than a year, resigning as union president on October 31, 1982. First vice president Patrick J. Campbell
assumed the presidency, and won election outright in 1985. But Campbell, too, resigned from office, stepping down for health reasons in February 1988. First vice president Sigurd Lucassen was appointed president to succeed him.
Making matters worse, the union had been rocked by financial scandal. In 1989, Lucassen told union members that Campbell had approved $95 million in loans to various builders, only to have nearly all the construction projects lose money or declare bankruptcy. Half the union's annual budget of $200 million might be needed to write off the loans. Lucassen blamed Campbell and bad advice from investment advisors, and initiated several lawsuits against them. But several elected union leaders accused Lucassen in federal court of colluding with Campbell to approve the loans.
When Lucassen ran for election outright in 1991, he was challenged by the union's national secretary, John S. "Whitey" Rogers. It was the first contested election for presidency of the carpenters' union since 1915. The election split the union's 15-member general executive board, with half the members supporting Lucassen's slate and half supporting Rogers' slate. In a hotly contested election rife with allegations of fraud, Lucassen and his running mates Dean Sooter, first vice president; Paschal McGuinness
, second vice president; Jim Patterson, general secretary; and Jim Bledsoe, general treasurer, won. Sooter stepped down in 1993, and McGuinness became first vice president. McCarron was then appointed by the executive board as second vice president.
for higher wages and better working conditions in 1992. McCarron got the national union to provide the workers with money, staff and other resources. Still secretary-treasurer of the Southern California district council, McCarron used the district council's resources to support that drywallers as well. The workers not only won their demands but formed a union and joined the carpenters. It was a major victory for the union, and one which enhanced McCarron's reputation among rank and file members.
(BCTD) of the AFL-CIO. Lucassen then appointed McCarron as first vice president. At the 1995 convention, Lucassen announced his retirement and nominated McCarron as general president along with Jim Patterson for the merged secretary-treasurer position and Andris Silins as first vice president. McCarron ran unopposed, and easily won election as president.
, 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 relected in 2005 and again in 2010.
. As per the rules of the AFL-CIO constitution and bylaws, the carpenters were forced out of the BCTD. Nevertheless, McCarron told his district and regional councils to continue to work closely with BCTD unions. At the same time McCarron ordered his Regional Councils to engage in a campaign of raiding other AFL-CIO Unions
McCarron moved away from the AFL-CIO politically as well. He became one of president George W. Bush
's strongest union supporters, and broke with the rest of organized labor to endorse the re-election bid of Florida
governor Jeb Bush
.
(ULLICO). In this capacity, however, he was caught up in two scandals.
The first ULLICO scandal occurred in 2002. In June 1998, the New York City
local of the carpenters union hired Zenith Administrators, a ULLICO subsidiary, to oversee the union's $1.7 billion pension and benefit funds. In 2002, federal prosecutors and DOL investigated the company for allegedly obtaining the contract through McCarron's influence. DOL sued ULLICO and Zenith Administrators for mismanaging the union's funds, although McCarron himself was not accused of any crimes.
In 2003, McCarron was caught in a second scandal at ULLICO. ULLICO president, chairman and chief executive officer Robert Georgine
had instituted a stock trading scheme whereby ULLICO board members -- most of whom were labor union officials -- could purchase the company's stock at a low price. Since ULLICO was a privately held company
, the board members themselves set the stock price. Once they had set the price higher, they could sell their stock at a large profit. The stock repurchase scheme was uncovered, and McCarron and the other directors accused of breaching their fiduciary duty and breaking federal and state securities laws. McCarron returned his profits to ULLICO and resigned from the board.
-led New Unity Partnership (which eventually became the Change to Win Federation
).
McCarron led the carpenters into Change to Win in August 2005 as one of the coalition's founding unions.
In 2009 McCarron was forced out of the Change to Win Coalition when McCarron attempted to raid several Change to Win affiliate Unions.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
activist and, since 1995, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is one of the largest building trades union in the United States. One of the unions that formed the American Federation of Labor in 1886, it left the AFL-CIO in 2001.-Early years:...
.
Early life and career
McCarron was born in 1951 in Chatsworth, California. His father was a meat cutterMeat Cutter
A meat cutter prepares primal cuts into a variety of smaller cuts intended for sale in a retail environment. The duties of a meat cutter are related to that of a butcher.-Overview:...
in a supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
. While still in high school, he married and had a daughter. Dropping out of high school his senior year, he took a job as a construction worker, hanging drywall
Drywall
Drywall, also known as plasterboard, wallboard or gypsum board is a panel made of gypsum plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper...
. He quickly joined the carpenters' union.
In 1980, McCarron was elected president of his local union. He was named to the negotiating team of the Southern California Council of Carpenters, a regional body covering contractors and other employers in 11 counties. During this time, he came to the attention of leaders with the national carpenters union.
In late 1984, McCarron was named a trustee of the Southern California Pension Fund, the carpenters' union retirement fund. In late 1985 and early 1986, McCarron discovered that $130 million in loans to construction companies were delinquent but no action had been taken by the other trustees. Working with Ron Tutor, a construction company owner and co-chairman of the fund's board of trustees, McCarron and others filed a federal civil suit alleging that the pension fund trustees had made sweetheart loans to employer trustees, masking the loans as investments. Several of the construction projects had failed, with the fund suffering significant losses. The suit was settled out of court 1989 when insurance companies representing the trustees and construction companies paid the fund $30 million. Under the terms of the settlement, all the defendants agreed to immediately and permanently resign from the pension fund's board.
McCarron's relationship with Tutor was not without controversy. In 1993, the carpenters' pension fund made a large investment in a company which held televised boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
matches at a Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
, hotel owned by the fund, and a $40 million investment in a company that supplied nearly all the concrete for one of Tutor's construction companies. The value of the latter investment declined by 31 percent, leading union members to call for a federal investigation.
District council tenure
McCarron was elected secretary-treasurer of the Southern California Council of Carpenters in 1987. He quickly reorganized the union, a move which became a hallmark of his later career as international union president. At the time, the Southern California carpenters' union had hundreds of mostly autonomous local unions which managed their own affairs (some well, some not), set their own work rules, competed with one another for jobs, and ran their own hiring halls. The district council had little power. Employers, however, wanted to work with just the district council, one set of rules and one wage structure.McCarron quickly began merging locals, sometimes through elections and sometimes through trusteeship. In 1988, he forced 18 Southern California locals to merge, leaving only four large ones. Using the union's trusteeship powers, he appointed new leaders to the newly-merged locals and transferred most of their assets to the district council. The mergers caused heated political and legal battles. Five locals sued to stop the forced merger in federal court, but lost.
International union officials, who had already consolidated the number of union locals to 1,466 from 2,200 since 1978, sided with McCarron, and the wave of consolidations continued.
Some union members questioned McCarron's motivation for the mergers. For example, in 1991, several carpenter locals in Orange
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
and Riverside
Riverside County, California
Riverside County is a county in the U.S. state of California. One of 58 California counties, it covers in the southern part of the state, and stretches from Orange County to the Colorado River, which forms the state border with Arizona. The county derives its name from the city of Riverside,...
counties were trusteed. The locals were forcibly merged into a new affiliate, Local 803, which was in turn supervised from McCarron's Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
offices. In 1992, carpenters' international union president Sigurd Lucassen
Sigurd Lucassen
Sigurd Lucassen was a carpenter and an American labor leader. He was president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from February 1988 to 1995.-Early life:...
and McCarron ordered a snap one-day election to select new Local 803 leaders. Nominations and the election were held on the same night. Of the 3,400 active and retired members eligible to vote, only 140 did so. Union members appealed the election results to the international union, which rejected the complaint. The union members then complained to United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. Many U.S. states also have such departments. The...
(DOL), arguing that union officials were trying to use the election to tighten their control over Local 803. A federal judge agreed, noting that Lucassen and McCarron had violated federal labor law and the union's own constitution.
Rise to the presidency
There was turmoil at the top of the national union as well, which eventually vaulted McCarron into the union's presidency.Turmoil in the Carpenters
Leadership of the carpenters' union had turned over quickly in the 1980s, causing political instability in the union. President William SidellWilliam Sidell
William Sidell was a carpenter and an American labor leader. He was president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from 1973 to 1979....
had retired unexpectedly on December 31, 1979. William Konyha
William Konyha
William Konyha was a carpenter and an American labor leader. He was president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from January 1, 1980 to October 31, 1982....
was elected to replace him on January 1, 1980, winning the regularly scheduled presidential election in August 1981. But Konyha served little longer than a year, resigning as union president on October 31, 1982. First vice president Patrick J. Campbell
Patrick J. Campbell
Patrick J. Campbell was a carpenter and an American labor leader. He was president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from November 1, 1982 to February 1988....
assumed the presidency, and won election outright in 1985. But Campbell, too, resigned from office, stepping down for health reasons in February 1988. First vice president Sigurd Lucassen was appointed president to succeed him.
Making matters worse, the union had been rocked by financial scandal. In 1989, Lucassen told union members that Campbell had approved $95 million in loans to various builders, only to have nearly all the construction projects lose money or declare bankruptcy. Half the union's annual budget of $200 million might be needed to write off the loans. Lucassen blamed Campbell and bad advice from investment advisors, and initiated several lawsuits against them. But several elected union leaders accused Lucassen in federal court of colluding with Campbell to approve the loans.
When Lucassen ran for election outright in 1991, he was challenged by the union's national secretary, John S. "Whitey" Rogers. It was the first contested election for presidency of the carpenters' union since 1915. The election split the union's 15-member general executive board, with half the members supporting Lucassen's slate and half supporting Rogers' slate. In a hotly contested election rife with allegations of fraud, Lucassen and his running mates Dean Sooter, first vice president; Paschal McGuinness
Paschal McGuinness
-Early life and career:Paschal was born in County Cavan, Ireland. During his early life, he learned the Carpenter trade via an apprenticeship program. After emigrating to the United States, Paschal joined Local Union 608 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America in November 1957...
, second vice president; Jim Patterson, general secretary; and Jim Bledsoe, general treasurer, won. Sooter stepped down in 1993, and McGuinness became first vice president. McCarron was then appointed by the executive board as second vice president.
Tenure as second vice president
As second vice president, McCarron won acclaim for helping to organize new members. A large number of Southern California non-union drywall workers had struckStrike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
for higher wages and better working conditions in 1992. McCarron got the national union to provide the workers with money, staff and other resources. Still secretary-treasurer of the Southern California district council, McCarron used the district council's resources to support that drywallers as well. The workers not only won their demands but formed a union and joined the carpenters. It was a major victory for the union, and one which enhanced McCarron's reputation among rank and file members.
Election as president
Rogers asked DOL to overturn the election on the basis of fraud. DOL sued the union, and in 1995 reached a settlement with Lucassen and the union calling for a new election. Realizing he could not win after having essentially admitted he had committed fraud in the 1991 election, Lucassen did not to run. McGuinness, meanwhile, had been accused of, and subsequently settled, racketeering charges and quit the union to run for secretary-treasurer of the Building and Construction Trades DepartmentBuilding and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
The Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO is a constitutionally mandated department of the AFL-CIO. It was founded on February 10, 1908, as a way to overcome the jurisdictional conflicts occurring in the building and construction trade unions...
(BCTD) of the AFL-CIO. Lucassen then appointed McCarron as first vice president. At the 1995 convention, Lucassen announced his retirement and nominated McCarron as general president along with Jim Patterson for the merged secretary-treasurer position and Andris Silins as first vice president. McCarron ran unopposed, and easily won election as president.
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 MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
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
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and built a 10-story office building in its place. He also built a $100 million training center near Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, 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
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, and San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, 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
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
-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 relected in 2005 and again in 2010.
AFL-CIO disaffiliation
McCarron led the carpenters' union out of the AFL-CIO in March 2001. "The AFL-CIO continues to operate under the rules and procedures of an era that passed years ago, while the industries that employ our members change from day to day," said McCarron in a letter to AFL-CIO president John SweeneyJohn Sweeney (labor leader)
John Joseph Sweeney was the president of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009.-Early years:Born in The Bronx, New York, Sweeney is the son of Joseph and Agnes , both Irish immigrants. The family moved to Yonkers in 1944, where Sweeney attended St. Barnabas Elementary School and graduated from Cardinal...
. As per the rules of the AFL-CIO constitution and bylaws, the carpenters were forced out of the BCTD. Nevertheless, McCarron told his district and regional councils to continue to work closely with BCTD unions. At the same time McCarron ordered his Regional Councils to engage in a campaign of raiding other AFL-CIO Unions
McCarron moved away from the AFL-CIO politically as well. He became one of president George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's strongest union supporters, and broke with the rest of organized labor to endorse the re-election bid of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
governor Jeb Bush
Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W...
.
ULLICO scandals
For several years, McCarron served on the board of directors of the Union Labor Life Insurance CompanyUnion Labor Life Insurance Company
Ullico Inc. is a privately held insurance and financial services holding company in the United States. The Union Labor Life Insurance Company was founded in 1925 by the American Federation of Labor by its then president, Samuel Gompers, to offer health and life insurance products specifically to...
(ULLICO). In this capacity, however, he was caught up in two scandals.
The first ULLICO scandal occurred in 2002. In June 1998, the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
local of the carpenters union hired Zenith Administrators, a ULLICO subsidiary, to oversee the union's $1.7 billion pension and benefit funds. In 2002, federal prosecutors and DOL investigated the company for allegedly obtaining the contract through McCarron's influence. DOL sued ULLICO and Zenith Administrators for mismanaging the union's funds, although McCarron himself was not accused of any crimes.
In 2003, McCarron was caught in a second scandal at ULLICO. ULLICO president, chairman and chief executive officer Robert Georgine
Robert Georgine
Robert Georgine is a retired labor union activist and leader in the United States, and the former president, chairman and chief executive officer of the Union Labor Life Insurance Company....
had instituted a stock trading scheme whereby ULLICO board members -- most of whom were labor union officials -- could purchase the company's stock at a low price. Since ULLICO was a privately held company
Privately held company
A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the...
, the board members themselves set the stock price. Once they had set the price higher, they could sell their stock at a large profit. The stock repurchase scheme was uncovered, and McCarron and the other directors accused of breaching their fiduciary duty and breaking federal and state securities laws. McCarron returned his profits to ULLICO and resigned from the board.
Change to Win
Although the carpenters' union was not part of the AFL-CIO in 2005 during the debate over the federation's future and John Sweeney's re-election campaign, McCarron voiced repeated approval of the goals of the Andrew SternAndy Stern
Andrew L. "Andy" Stern , is the former president of the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union , the fastest-growing union in the Americas. SEIU is the second largest union in the United States and Canada after the National Education Association.Stern was elected in 1996 to...
-led New Unity Partnership (which eventually became the Change to Win Federation
Change to Win Federation
The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model...
).
McCarron led the carpenters into Change to Win in August 2005 as one of the coalition's founding unions.
In 2009 McCarron was forced out of the Change to Win Coalition when McCarron attempted to raid several Change to Win affiliate Unions.