An organizer’s perspective:

It is no secret that building trades unions in the United States have been hemorrhaging members for over 40 years. Neoliberal economic reforms, abandonment of class-based politics, job outsourcing, legislative and cultural attacks on organized labor: All have challenged the trades. Our membership (and power) have been decimated as a result.

U.S. construction unions have long been divided on craft lines. There are 14 affiliates in North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU). These affiliates enjoy complete autonomy over their jurisdiction. 

There are good and bad features to this specialization. Training, for instance, is specific to the individual trade. This makes union apprenticeships far more comprehensive and meaningful than whatever training non-union workers receive. Labor agreements are bargained by people performing the actual trade. An ironworker contract is not littered with provisions geared for electricians. Autonomy is given to these trades to conduct their affairs as they see fit. 

One downside is organizational individualism. It is relatively easy to divide the building trades politically, and to pit them against each other fighting over pieces of “turf.”  

Raiding as organizing

Spending time and limited resources by “organizing” workers who already operate in other craft unions—believing you are organizing when in fact you are raiding—is an old practice.

From an organizer’s perspective, I always found it to be an incredible waste of time for the labor movement overall. 

Diagnosis; self-preservation

Before getting too far along, lets provide a bit of context. It is not being suggested that you do not defend your trade, or if you have work in your contract that is clear and another trade is doing it, to ignore that. That is not the case. I am also not referring to the occasional overlap of certain practices that are minor in detail that can be solved with a few phone calls between union business representatives. I am also not talking about organizing brand new non-union members who are not being approached or organized by other trades. The folks that need and are looking for representation are fair game. 

What I am referring to is an all-out mass encroachment into already organized work, which just happens to be work that your organization isn’t performing. So, lets unpack exactly what that means, where it stems from, and how to stop it.

To coagulate and stave off declining membership numbers, some of our brothers and sister organizers and International Unions have turned to  organizing work already being performed by other union members of another trade. To put it bluntly, this does not help organized labor. First, it adds not one single union member to the ranks. The person who was performing the work before, either bumps someone else’s job somewhere else, joins the raiding union, or often, is unemployed. The raiding union, then sends their already organized members to take over the work. 

If it were an equation, it would look like this:

• Raiding trade 1         +     raided trade -1= Labor movement 0.

If the larger scheme for unions is to gain political power through developing class consciousness (which it should be), this doesn’t help. Further, the amount of money that is spent litigating these encroachments can be staggering. I would be willing to bet if all legal expenses were added up by all the trades, it would be in the millions.  Imagine if your organization invested that money instead into organizing training and programs, or internal political organizing. Trade raiding also creates further division between the locals and internationals culturally, making it impossible for combined political clout and cohesiveness- just the way our enemies like it. 

Corporate mimicry

So where does this backwards approach to solidarity come from? To harken back to the previous point, it is a bit of desperate self-preservation for some organizers. They attempt to bolster their ranks to impress bosses, keep their job, and increase the coffers of their union. We could call the last reason “check-off grabbing”. Simply stated, one union is getting those checkoffs, and they want those check off dues. Not exactly solidarity forever, is it? Strategically, it has no place in the long-term game. 

Financially, most international unions are in good health and in a position to do more with their wealth than at any time before. But these short-sided power grabs are more akin to the corporate world that all too often gets mimicked. Slogans like “value on display”, and that type of mentality has led far too many of our labor leaders into the confusing dogma of business unionism – a world were labor leaders look to be more like CEO’s and lieutenants of capital than working class unifiers. This is not a vision that sparks inspiration in the membership, nor fear in the anti-union corporate and political world. Our enemies bask in the warmth of that capitulation and are glad to see us try and join their club. They will invite labor leaders to golf so that they can ease their business tensions quickly, and once the relationships are close enough, undermine your workers. Its just a fact. I decided long ago – be cordial, do what makes sense, but know in the back of your mind that when you are dealing with the business leaders and their lieutenants (most public officials), you are on the other side. They would gladly eliminate your union if they could, so stop with the corporate impersonation. It is easy to see where “value on display”, and business unionism has gotten the building trades over the last 40 years – at record low membership, and weak political clout. 

What to do?

First and foremost, focus on organizing nonunion craftworkers and real political education. Take every dollar that was spent litigating your trade’s encroachment on others, and spend it on organizers, organizer training, organizer education, labor history training and internal organizing. Notice that I did not tell the other trades to stop spending money on litigating your encroachment into their already organized workforce. They will not need to spend any if you stop. Problem solved. 

Now, if someone wants to talk about unifying trades under an umbrella to click together for political power, that should be music to everyone’s ears. This would not require an abandonment of trade autonomy, but it would require more cooperation than there is now. There would no doubt be difficulties in transitioning from many different construction unions into a few, but it is not impossible. Combined organize labor happens in many other countries, and they are stronger for it. As I was told when I first got into union politics “let’s not let the 2% of things we disagree with tear apart the 98% on which we agree.” It is time to stop letting our enemies divide us up based upon that 2%.

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