Steve Sweeney’s Own Union Members Question His Loyalty to Labor
New Jersey Democrat defended decision to take over local union
New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, who has feuded with public-sector unions in his state for years, makes it a point to tout his dedication to the broader labor movement.
“I’m a vice president of the Ironworkers International of North America,” Mr. Sweeney, a Democrat, said in an interview last year with The Wall Street Journal. “There is no one you are going to find that is more union than me.”
Fellow ironworkers across the Hudson River in New York disagree.
Mr. Sweeney, the top-ranking state legislator in New Jersey, is in a quarrel with members of his own union after a labor dispute earlier this year at the $25 billion Hudson Yards project on Manhattan’s westside.
The fight comes as Mr. Sweeney continues to inflame public unions in New Jersey by pushing for spending cuts to the pension and health-care benefits of unionized state employees. In 2011, Mr. Sweeney supported then Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and his efforts to curb pension costs.
Mr. Sweeney’s union—the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers—forced Local 46 in New York in February to abandon its participation in a protest movement involving multiple trades called #CountMeIn. The movement had aimed to get developer Related Cos. to sign a single agreement with multiple construction trades to work on the Hudson Yards project.
Local 46 had protested at Hudson Yards for 11 months when the international union cut a deal with the developer that didn’t include other unions. The parent union then instructed the local to report to work at Hudson Yards. When the members refused to break ranks with the other unions, the international union took control of the local in February, fired its elected business manager and forced other leaders to reapply for their positions.
A few days later Local 46 crossed the picket line and began work at Hudson Yards.
“It was counterproductive and a betrayal to the labor movement and every working man and woman in New York,” said Terry Moore, Local 46’s former business manager, a role akin to a chief executive.
The international ironworkers union held a hearing in March explaining to rank-and-file members why it took control of the local. Mr. Sweeney presented the parent union’s case and introduced evidence at the hearing, according to a transcript of the hearing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
At the hearing, Mr. Sweeney said the parent union took over the local because it was losing market share in New York City and hundreds of its members were unemployed or underemployed.
Local 46 has to change or it would “shrink and die,” Mr. Sweeney said at the hearing. “Our responsibility as international officers, as members of this local is to secure work to ensure that our members, our brothers and sisters, get out on those job sites.”
Mr. Sweeney referred requests for comment to Frank Marco, general counsel for the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. Mr. Marco declined to comment.
Mr. Moore, the former business manager, acknowledges that Local 46 had lost market share, but said he had taken steps to address it, including taking pay cuts to become more competitive with nonunion labor. He also said the local added about 600 apprentices and trainees from 2012 to 2017 while he was business manager.
It is unusual for an international union to force a local to cross a picket line, said Ellen Dichner, a former attorney at the National Labor Relations Board. Showing solidarity with fellow union members is a central concept to labor, she said.
“They may find they need the solidarity of the other unions, and you have to wonder whether the other unions will honor that,” Ms. Dichner said.
The international union’s agreement with Related dealt a blow against the solidarity of the other building trades and eliminated any leverage the unions had in their dispute with Related, according to New York labor officials. Soon after, Related reached an agreement with an umbrella organization for trade unions in the region to end the labor demonstration at Hudson Yards.
A spokeswoman for Related didn’t comment.
At the hearing in March, many members voiced anger that New Jersey’s Senate president was part of the process.
“I think, Steve, you should go to New Jersey, take your Pinkertons with you,” one member told Mr. Sweeney during the hearing, in a reference to union busters.
Honoring picket lines was the “unwritten bible” for the labor movement, John Skinner, former president of Local 46 and a member in good standing with the union, said in an interview.
“Local 46 membership does not like Mr. Sweeney in any way,” Mr. Skinner said.
At the hearing, Mr. Skinner asked Mr. Sweeney to acknowledge that the parent union, directed by its general president, forced members to cross the picket line.
“You were directed to go to work after the international signed an agreement to ensure all iron work, all other locals that are involved in New York City, to gain work,” Mr. Sweeney responded at the hearing.
Mr. Sweeney also said at the hearing that Local 46 had plenty of notice to go to work.
“And at this point I can only speak for the ironworkers,” Mr. Sweeney said. “Yeah, we wanted the iron workers to go to work.”
Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com
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