Raiding can run rampant when organizing workers in a poor economic climate: Union
The open period, which started on Feb. 1 and continues until May 1, is the only time when unions are allowed to recruit already unionized workplaces to switch representation.
There’s an open period for construction unions in Ontario every three years.
Two unions — the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (Carpenters’ Union) and the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) — have been involved in a particularly divisive rivalry, according to Joseph Mancinelli, international vice president of LIUNA.
Multiple calls to the Carpenters’ Union were not returned.
The issues started after the Carpenters’ Union hired a number of former employees LIUNA let go, said Mancinelli.
“They started with our health-care units, they raided approximately 1,000 members in the health-care sector and once they did that our leadership and our members decided that they were going to retaliate,” he said.
There are a number of issues that cause raiding to happen with unions, said Ryerson University associate professor Timothy Bartkiw, who was a co-author on a 2005 study on union raiding.
Raiding in Ontario generally decreased between 1975 and 2003, with the exception of big increases in 2000 and 2001 as a result of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) takeovers of several Service Employees International Union (SEIU) locals, according to the study.
“The things that cause particular raids to happen are the particular things that happen on the ground, so the particular kinds of unions involved and their willingness to engage in this kind of activity,” he said.
Another factor is how happy people are with their existing union.
“This can be legitimate or it can sometimes just be drummed up,” he said.
From a union perspective, one of the reasons why raiding might happen is due to the difficulty of organizing new workplaces in a difficult economic climate, said Bartkiw.
“We know how hard it is to unionize people out there, we know how scared workers are and we know how easy it is for them to get fired illegally and how hard it is for us to do something about it in the current climate,” he said.
It’s actually more difficult to organize workplaces that are not unionized than to switch union representation for a group who are already organized, said Bartkiw.
“They’re more protected in the sense that they already have an organization in place, they clearly see the benefits of unionization, they’ve already voted for it once, so it’s not as hard in some ways. On the other hand though, it’s hard because they have an opponent,” he added.
“Not to say that unions aren’t organizing or making good efforts — they are,” he said.
It’s harder to run a union in the current economic climate, said Bartkiw.
“It’s not because unions are doing a bad job. It’s because the environment is harsher and employees aren’t really sensitive to that and they are just looking to shed the union because they’re seeing no results, so there can be that on the demand side.”
The current rivalry is not because of unemployment in the construction sector, said Mancinelli.
“This is my 35th year with LIUNA, and there have been tensions in the past with the Carpenters’ Union.
They’ve always been a rival organization, but never has the tensions between the organizations been as high — and it’s not because of work, because I think what we’re experiencing in Ontario is a very high level of employment. verybody’s working,” said Mancinelli.
The tensions may be high, but applications for raiding in front of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) are fairly steady compared to past years. From Feb. 1 to March 26, 2013 the board received 58 raid applications, which is comparable to past years, said board solicitor Voy Stelmaszynski.
Mancinelli said he looks forward to May 1, when the current open period will expire.
“I’m hoping that by May 1... everybody gets back to business and we don’t have to worry about looking over our shoulders at a rival union trying to steal our members,” he said.
But the after effects of this raiding period will likely live on because there will be a lot of litigation as a result of the open season, said Mancinelli.
One of LIUNA’s locals has filed a lawsuit against the Carpenters’ Union.
Litigation can take years and raid applications in front of the OLRB also take time to be processed, said Mancinelli.
“So this is going to be, unfortunately, lingering, at least in the next year or two because of what happened within this three-month period.”
LIUNA has been lobbying the provincial government in Ontario to shorten the open period time in the future, Mancinelli added.
“Three months is a long time; we’ve got negotiations going on,” he said.
A shorter open period would still allow unsatisfied workplaces to switch unions if they wanted to and it would let unions get back to important business, Mancinelli said.
“I’d much rather be negotiating, I’d rather be organizing the unorganized as opposed to watching over our shoulder to what some competing unions are doing and what we’re doing to combat them as well,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s a counterproductive process and one that robs valuable time from doing productive things.”
