Raiding: Why do unions raid each other instead of organizing unorganized workers?

And it's a lie. Raiding is a rare exceptional activity compared to organized the unorganized. That's why the very few examples are so notorious.

Of course, in some sectors, there is mandatory government-imposed "raiding" (like the open period among construction trades in Québec). And in B.C., the nurses have been involved in accusations of raids. Same with health care facilities in Ontario between CAW and SEIU about 15 years ago.

And, there are groups of workers who get fed up with their union for a variety of reasons and vote to join another. The losers generally call this a "raid", because the concept of listening to the workers and solving the underlying problems is so alien to them.

Unions don't spend nearly enough time, money, and resources organizing - not just unorganized workers, but working and marginalized people in general. But to suggest that that's because they spend those same resources "raiding" is simply a concoction. The problem is one of ideology, internal democracy, and connection with real-life movements.

Unionist wrote:

Raiding is a rare exceptional activity compared to organized the unorganized. That's why the very few examples are so notorious.

Needs repeating because it is central, and NR just ignored the fact.

What you say may be true in Quebec but in BC it has been a real problem. 

With the HEU (my wife's union) not only the Nurses but also in the last decade the IWA/Steelworkers were also raiding them.  Now apparently the PPWC is taking a go at them as well.  My Carpenters Union has also been the subject of raids forever in BC. It is a very nasty pattern in this province. The provincial government moves against the most miltant unions and some other union sees it as a great opportunity. But it is all altruistim on the part of the raiding union because those unions that are under constant attack by the government just can't service their members as well as they should be so it is really for the members benefit.

I guess when you live in a union household that is constantly under attack you don't get to wear the rose coloured glasses.

Krop is right that it is different in BC.

But I still think the point U. makes stands.

The point of the thread was the distraction of unions going out to raid.

And I would say that in BC it is a lot more complicated than that.

BC is BC.

Rivalries in politics and unions are more intense, and have been for longer than before I was working [1970]. Since I started in construction working on mills and in camps, I was in the IWA rather than Carpenters.

No bones about it, that IWA local was for getting around the construction unions. And that started in the heyday of militants in the IWA... when the craft unions were looked down on for their politics.

It wasn't raiding per se. But only not raiding (formaly) in name.

When the politics that was behind that slides away, the insitutional emnities are still there. And along with that, behaviour towards other unions seen as acceptable, that would not be tolerated elsewhere.

I still think it is true that the amount of resources that going into organizing the unorganized utterly dwarfs what goes into raiding. And I am counting resources that go into unions defending themselves from losing members to another union.... which amounts to a lot more than resources going into initiatives that could be called rading.