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“Organizations have strong cultures and their histories become their cultures,” said Carla Lipsig-Mummé, a labour studies professor at York University who studies the Canadian union movement. “This is a particular culture and a particular set of fights refought in continuity. For the length of time it’s gone on and the way it has flipped back and forth, it is unusual.”

‘The violence is gone, thank God, from the old days. … But the tension and conflicts exists and they exist for a number of reasons’

The epicenter of the current dispute is Toronto, where LIUNA’s Local 183 represents some of the workers in similar trades as the Carpenters’ Local 1030, creating its own war within a war.

The Carpenters’ union, Joe Mancinelli, LIUNA’s regional manager for central and eastern Canada, openly says, is “our nemesis.”

“The violence is gone, thank God, from the old days — and that predates my 38 years with LIUNA,” he said in an interview with the National Post. “But the tension and conflicts exists and they exist for a number of reasons.”

He points to personalities, jurisdiction, limitations of market share and government rules allowing “raiding” of other union members, among them.

(After several requests over three weeks for an interview with the Carpenters’ union, based in Woodbridge, Ont., or its lawyer, no official was made available to the Post prior to deadline.)

The industry both unions represent works differently from most, which creates an environment that fuels dispute.

Construction work involves gathering workers to complete a specific, limited project with an employer typically hiring for that finite purpose — once the house is built or the road complete, that job is done. The person paying for the work, such as a developer or homeowner, deals with contractors and sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors rather than hiring individual workers.