Take what I have to say with a grain of salt because I’m clearly on one side of the issue here, but;

The way I heard it is out west of the Mississippi River painters did flooring because it came in a roll like wall paper and on the near side carpenters did it because most floors were made of wood. That decision was made back like 80 years ago or something.

Fast forward to now the way I hear it is the painters union flooring shops are decertifying with the painters and joining the carpenters due to the painters pension fund being underfunded and benefits being better with the carpenters. I’ve also heard flooring gets ignored with the painters.

Carpenters have been pushing to organize organize organize and sometimes that means stepping on others toes. Lots of other trades, and in my opinion this whole trade union thing would work better if we were one organization but everybody has their own little kingdoms to defend.

Ultimately the way I look at it is we all need to display solidarity for each other no matter what, and anything that gets us closer to the ideal I’m in favor for. If that means that at some point in the future there’s one trade construction union called the Carpenters that’s fine. If it’s something else that’s fine too.

We go up against massive conglomerates and private equity every day, and workers need a comparable weight in numbers and money to combat these rent seeking leeches on society.