General President
Throughout his career, Doug McCarron has been known for combining innovative leadership and sound management practices with genuine concern for rank-and-file union members and unrepresented building trades workers.
McCarron was first recognized throughout Southern California as a labor leader and a political activist. In 1994, his work in California was recognized nationally when he was named vice president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, which represents some 500,000 building trades and forest products workers throughout the United States and Canada.
Since being elected general president in 1995, McCarron has undertaken the most extensive restructuring in the union’s nearly 130-year history, moving the organization to a regional structure that matches modern construction markets. McCarron and his leadership team were re-elected to five-year terms in 2000 and again in 2005.
McCarron began his career as a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in 1968, when he joined Local 1506 in Los Angeles. Working his way through the ranks of the union, he was elected president of the Southern California Conference of Carpenters in 1982 and president of the Los Angeles County District Council of Carpenters in 1983.
As a prominent California labor leader, he was influential in pension fund reform, and he led an effort to consolidate and modernize the union’s operations throughout Southern California. In 1992 nearly 3,000 independent drywall strikers turned to McCarron and the union for help in ending their industry-wide strike and negotiating a historic first contract.
McCarron has devoted his career to making sure that workers earn a living wage and decent benefits, that they have access to training, and that their workplaces are safe. He has worked closely with other construction industry leaders to encourage national cooperation to create jobs in a rapidly changing economy. In politics, he has sought to expand the union’s outreach to the leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties.
His foresight, vision, and leadership style have led industry leaders and national publications such as Business Week to refer to McCarron as a “new breed of labor leader.”
General Vice President
Doug Banes has been general vice president of the UBC since 1995. He is a 40-year member of Millwright Local 2158, where he served as a business representative and business manager and was the first secretary/treasurer of the Northwest Illinois & Eastern Iowa District Council (currently part of Chicago Regional Council).
He is currently chair of the International Millwright Committee and the International Pile Driver Committee.
He and his wife, Jan, have three children and five grandchildren.
General Secretary-Treasurer
As general secretary-treasurer of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Andris J. Silins coordinates the financial and administrative operations of the 550,000-member union, as well as serving as editor of Carpenter Magazine.
He was elected general secretary-treasurer of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) in 2000 at the union’s 38th General Convention. Previously he served as second general vice president, a post to which he was elected in 1995.
In addition to his responsibilities with the UBC, Silins also serves as chairman and trustee for a number of union-related pension funds. He serves as treasurer of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency Board and as chairman of that agency’s retirement fund.
Silins joined the UBC in 1968, after serving with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam. As a member of Carpenters Local 67 in Boston, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the Boston District Council in 1979 and president in 1989.
During his tenure in Boston, Silins headed negotiations for the Carpenters in the first all-union Boston Harbor Project Labor Agreement and went on to negotiate the Massachusetts Carpenters first statewide agreement. In addition, he helped found the Massachusetts Carpenters Guaranteed Annuity Fund and the First Trade Union Savings Bank. He later served that bank as chairman of the board.
Silins holds a bachelor's degree in labor relations from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He and his family make their home on Cape Cod.
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