Growing up Together

Balistreri ushers unions into new age

By Sean Ryan
Daily Reporter Staff

Lyle Balistreri

John F. Kennedy was in the White House when Lyle Balistreri first entered Wisconsin’s construction industry, and since that time, he and organized labor have matured in tandem.

“It’s been a cakewalk,” said Balistreri, president of the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council. “We’ve been working for over 20 years on trying to improve relations with employers. I just want to send a message out there that in Wisconsin, the relationship between labor and management and the marketplace is good.”

Balistreri won his first elected union seat in 1984 as the first full-time organizer for both the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 494 and the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council. In January 2002, he was elected to his third term as the president of the council.

Wisconsin has not always been this sunny for workers, Balistreri said, and it took years to make life as good as it is today. The unions’ dealings with management were not cordial when he began organizing because the groups only communicated when something went wrong.

“I think that 30 years ago, we had a relationship with management that was very adversarial,” Balistreri said. “The only time we had relations with them was when we had a beef with them. Other than that, we just ignored them.”

Declining membership was also a problem because union leaders were not focused on organizing, he said.

“There was a lot of local leadership that wasn’t doing what it was supposed to be doing in recognizing the local union involvement,” Balistreri said. “They were in denial of the fact that our marketplace was going south on us, and nobody was doing anything to preserve it.”

Fast forward

But that was a long time ago.

Since then, his organization has landed more union workers in management positions to strengthen ties between the groups. Union rosters are much longer today because of the council’s success in forging collective-bargaining agreements, especially with groups such as Milwaukee Public Schools, he said.

“The first priority that we have is always the collective-bargaining agreements,” Balistreri said. “Those agreements work very, very well, and when you think about the magnitude of that or the logistics of it, we make it very, very easy. There are very few grievances in the construction industry.”

Although the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council is basking in the light of its recent success, Balistreri said things are more shaky within the national ranks of the AFL-CIO.

“Our relationship with management is better than some relationships within our own organization,” he said. “It is kind of like a family in that respect. I feel uncomfortable talking about it because it is within organized labor itself. I don’t know when it could get resolved because it is on a level much above my head.”

Whatever happens in the national arena, Balistreri said he would continue his council’s struggle to organize, remain amicable with management and ensure there’s enough work to go around for the state’s construction unions.

“I’d like to think, from time to time, I say something right, and somebody hears it,” he said. “It’s nothing new. We just want to continue to work in that direction. I think we’re on the right path...I know we are on the right path.”

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