LAS VEGAS (PAI)--A final decision on whether the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners will return to the AFL-CIO will come by mid-January, union officials attending the AFL-CIO convention in Las Vegas said.

The leaders said Carpenters President Douglas McCarron and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney are handling all the talks, including closed-door discussions at the Carpenters training center in Las Vegas.

"Talk to Sweeney," Building and Construction Trades Department President Edward C. Sullivan said when asked about progress, or lack of it, in the negotiations.

The Carpenters left the federation earlier this year. Their objections included the AFL-CIO did not spend enough on organizing and did not move employees out of the federation's Washington D.C. offices into the field.

Despite the Carpenters' departure, official AFL-CIO membership as of June 30, 2001, was 13,223,316, up from 12,869,540 the year before. Neither figure counts the Carpenters, which took 324,000 members with them when they left the AFL-CIO.

The Michigan Regional Carpenters Council had previously disaffiliated with the Detroit and Michigan Building Trades Councils in May 1996.