Igot out of jail in 1962 and went straight back to my job as an organizer. Now, of course, I enjoyed a certain respectability, given my trials and tribulations. I had what they call street cred. In the British trade union movement, going to prison during a strike is a badge of honour and, similarly, in Canada my jail time had made me famous in the movement.
Something else of great importance to me happened that spring. An Italian parish priest named Giuseppe Carraro had founded an organization called COSTI (Centro Organizzativo Scuole Tecniche Italiane) to help Italian immigrants. Carraro asked a number of organizations for financial help, Local 183 included. On Gallagher’s recommendation, we responded with a donation of $1,000, the only union to do so. I delivered the cheque to the COSTI office. At the time, it was a substantial donation; the average annual family wage was about $6,000. I took the funds to the tiny COSTI offices on Dundas Street West at Lansdowne Road in front of St. Helen’s church. It was a fateful visit because it is where I met Rita, the woman I would marry.
We did not get off to a promising start. She kept turning down my requests to take her out. Not only that, she tried every way she knew to discourage me. After I accepted Marino Toppan’s request to be the godfather to his first-born, Maurizio, I asked Rita to join me at the baptism and be the godmother. Finally, she relented. As a good native of the Trentino region of Italy, it was an obligation she could not refuse.
COSTI soon became an important organization within the Italian community under the leadership of its first director, Carletto Caccia, a man of considerable capacities. He went on to become a municipal councillor, a Member of Parliament, and, finally, Minister of Labour in the federal government. He served under Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau and John Turner. The talented Consul General of Italy back then, Dr. Cappetta, also helped the cause, organizing many events and even committing himself beyond his political mandate, just to help the Toronto Italian community. The COSTI headquarters moved from Dundas to the present location of the Consulate General of Italy, 136 Beverley Street, in Toronto, at that time known as the Casa d’Italia (House of Italy). The Casa d’Italia was built by Italian immigrants before the Second World War and confiscated by the Canadian government during the conflict. It was released by the Canadian government but not to the Italian community in Canada. It was given instead to the Italian government. The building was in poor shape. At one point, it had been converted into stables for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police horses. I remember going to see Rita there and she was wearing a coat because it was so cold inside that building. COSTI refurbished the premises through the efforts of the workers who attended its training courses. They did such a good job repairing and renovating it that the Italian government claimed it back and COSTI had to find a new location. Today COSTI is still an important immigrant organization, catering to all newcomers.
It was not just the technical trades who were getting an education at the time. I was about to hit the books myself. In the summer of 1963, the Canadian Labour Congress launched a seven-week course for trade unionists at the University of Montreal. I asked Gallagher if I could attend and, as a far-sighted man, he agreed. Before being admitted to the labour college, I had to present a paper explaining why I wanted to attend. My English was not perfect and I needed help with editing and so where else should I turn but to Frank Drea, the Telegram’s labour reporter who had shed light on the plight of immigrant workers with his hard-hitting stories. He helped me out.
The labour college was of great benefit. I studied the history of trade unions in Canada and the country’s political, economic, and social structure. There were many conferences at the college at which renowned leaders would give speeches. One in particular impressed me, delivered by René Lévesque, at that time Minister of Labour in the Liberal Government of Quebec but formerly a well-known journalist who had covered many big labour stories for the CBC. He had just started his career as an elected Member of the National Assembly, taking his seat in 1960.
During my time at the University of Montreal, I got to know other Canadian trade unionists taking the course, among them, Ray Ford of Labourers Local Union 506, who later became its business manager, and Keely Cumming, president of the CUPE Local Union 1000 (Canadian Union of Public Employees) which represented Ontario Hydro employees. I remember driving on Highway 401 to Montreal with Ford on June 1, 1963. It was about 6 a.m. and suddenly I broke out laughing. He asked me what was so funny. “I just remembered, today is June 1,” I said, “and exactly two years ago today about this time I was arrested. Today, I’m going to the labour college in Montreal.”
Cumming was a tall man, with blue eyes, blond hair, and a smile that would always put you in a good mood. He had served in the Canadian mercantile navy during the war and he told me about his part in a big brawl in Halifax at its end. VE (Victory in Europe) Day was a disaster in Halifax from the get-go. Everyone knew the war was ending and so when the announcement came on Monday, May 7, 1945, everything shut down so that civilians could celebrate for a couple of days. As Cumming told it, Halifax authorities closed all the bars for fear of drunken sailors celebrating and rioting. The sailors got so angry they kicked in the windows of the closed bars and turned the town upside down. A small-scale civil war broke out and went on for the better part of two days. Only the intervention of the army managed to calm things down. Cumming was a jovial person and a hard worker but, like his comrades in arms, he wanted his moment of fun.
We became good friends and we ended up talking a lot about the Canadian trade union movement, Canadian politics, and especially left-wing politics. He helped me expand my knowledge of these subjects at a time when the movement was gaining traction and growing quickly. We were no longer a bunch of malcontent immigrants. We were a real social movement with numbers, drawing members from all nationalities across the country.
This meant that Local 183 was getting busier and expanding. In 1962, we moved from the three small rooms on Bond Street over to Queen and McCaul on the second floor of a small building. The new headquarters was bigger and each one of us could have our own modest office. On the second floor were the small Lathers Union offices. The manager, who was Canadian-born, Ken Weller, was also arrested during the 1961 strike for obstructing police. He bragged that he had told the police officer to “Fuck off” but in court his charge was dismissed while another striker, a German arrested for obstructing police during the same strike, got a week’s suspended sentence. With the same charge, during the same strike, I got six months.
Working with Weller was Gus Simone, who later became the head of that Local. Simone and I became good friends and we helped each other out. He was a dynamic young man with far-sighted views. Bit by bit, he managed to build up a powerful local. Gus always respected our friendship even when there were major differences between our locals. At the end of the corridor on the same floor was the Toronto Building and Construction Trades Council office, headed by business manager Albert Hall and his assistant Jack Greely.
From 1962 to 1963 I continued to work as a trade union organizer providing services to our members and slowly increasing our local membership. It was a meticulous and systematic job. By day I worked to resolve our members’ problems and by night I went out to sign up new members and get their units certified at the Ontario Labour Relations Board. And so it went for the next few years. What had started as a struggle had become a routine job. That feeling would not last.