CAME ACROSS THIS AND THOUGHT IT MADE SOME GOOD POINTS
SOMETHING HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME FOR AWHILE
We have all seen the articles regarding the Carpenters Union where an appointed national representative purchased a house or houses with union money, first exposed in the Globe and Mail article "The union leader, the numbered company and the $4-million house" and then there were follow up articles and today for some reason on my feed an article from May 2026 "The biggest threat to organized labour is proving to be unions themselves".
To those outside the union world, It may be surprising that no matter how many articles are written, there is always another Union dealing with internal corruption, at some point you would think things would get cleaned up.
To a Union Leader that has been inside the Union System for some time, I can say it is not a surprise, the system itself by design makes it easier to bury the problem rather then fix it.
The first indicator of this is the very nature of the Globe and Mail breaking the story, you have to wonder why someone went to a paper to break the story as opposed to fixing it internally.
Being in the system, I know the higher up the ladder the corruption occurs the harder it is to fix internally, being in the case of the carpenters, the corrupt person worked for the National Office, the only path to the International Office that has the ability to investigate, in most cases is the National Office. A person would need to be able to bypass the National Office, which is next to impossible.(IN CANADA)
Once you are outside the Union system, there is almost nowhere to go, the (CANADIAN)Labour Board is slow and very difficult to navigate, and trying to go to the police for an investigation is pointless.
So for a union member, and it had to be someone on the inside because they knew about the numbered company, the only course of action would be to a news outlet, and being the member cared enough to end the corruption I would think that person spent a few restless nights weighing the limited options.
I hope I never see another article like these, but I know there will be more, I see within my own organization a lack of ethics, and the only thing standing between it and the Union is a patronage appointment or a popularity contest which some refer to as an election.
Unions are an important part of our society, and they are one of the only institutions that unless a person has a huge amount of energy and money nothing can be done to fix any wrong doings.
THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE!!!
ANDREW TARR
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE ....JASON ROWES LINKEDIN
