Last Thursday, more than two thousand carpenters in the Seattle area and western Washington started a strike, after members of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters voted down a fourth tentative agreement between the union’s bargaining team and the employers’ association, the Association of General Contractors (AGC).

Many of those carpenters voting no have expressed anger at their union’s leadership team, which they allege has neither bargained for sufficient wage and benefit improvements nor organized to make the strike a success. Others have charged that union leaders are choosing empty or nearly finished construction sites to picket rather than major jobs, ensuring that contractors feel minimal pain from the strike.

Jacobin spoke with carpenter Art Francisco about the strike and the lead-up to it. Francisco is the chair of the Peter J. McGuire Group, an organization of rank-and-file carpenters that grew out of the 2018 contract negotiations.