Local 183 was gaining a reputation as a strong union with a dedicated membership when, in the spring of 1968, we got a call from Bill Milner, the business manager of the Labourers Local 168 in Vancouver. Milner was an extraordinary man. Originally from Sudbury, he had moved to Vancouver where he became active in the labour movement and was elected to the top position of Local 168, representing tunnel and rock workers. When his International imposed the Canadian Pipeline collective agreement that it had negotiated on its Canadian locals, who had to service the contract, Milner pushed back. He objected to the agreement because it was binding coast-to-coast in Canada yet it contained rates far below those he had established in British Columbia. He was charged and suspended by his International for two years. His members respected him so much, though, that when his suspension was over they re-elected him to the local’s top position.
Over the years, Local 183 had developed a strong friendship with a number of business managers across Canada and in particular with Milner and a Newfoundland local because we were the three labourers’ locals representing underground workers. On that day in the spring of 1968, Milner was calling to tell us that a number of former members of his local were working in Sudbury for a non-union mining development contractor and wanted to be organized. There were approximately seven hundred miners working for Dravo, an American company, which, in turn, was subcontracting work from Inco, the International Nickle Company, then the largest nickel miner in the world and today owned by Vale of Brazil. Milner thought that ours was the appropriate local to represent the workers even though our International already had Local 493 in Sudbury.
Mike Reilly jumped at the opportunity. He went to Sudbury, contacted the people as directed by Milner, and formed an organizing committee. Within a few months we applied for certification. Despite the company’s strong opposition, we were successful in our application at the Ontario Labour Relations Board. A process of hard bargaining took place but finally a collective agreement was reached. We opened an office in Sudbury and hired a full-time representative, Hugh MacDonald, and a secretary.
By this point in early 1969, I was the manager of Local 183 and it was my duty and responsibility to represent the Sudbury miners. Of course, I knew little about mining, being a city boy. The majority of the miners were from Eastern Canada and Finland. In the beginning, they looked at me suspiciously. I did not blame them. I was an Italian immigrant with no tunnel work experience and, really, not much in the way of construction experience, either. My work world was administration, making phone calls, going to meetings, organizing meetings, getting people to sign up, and running around taking care of members’ concerns.
Gradually, I gained their trust, primarily because I was able to make major improvements in their collective agreement at renewal. Despite opposition from the United Steelworkers of America, representing many thousands of Inco employers, we expanded our operation and hired an additional representative, Steve McLelland. Under the new collective agreement, we established a benefits plan for things like sick pay, coverage of prescription drugs, and life insurance. The plan was administered by our local. To better serve the members, the Sudbury office secretary, Anne Morrison, was authorized to sign and issue the cheques for claims.
Part of my job was to make regular visits to our Sudbury office. One late evening I arrived tired after a long drive from Toronto and decided to go to bed early. At about 10 p.m. the phone rang. It was Anne Morrison inviting me for a drink downstairs. She had a friend with her by the name of Heidi. I begged off, saying I was bushed but she would have none of it. She insisted and I felt obliged to accept her invitation. I was staying at the Holiday Inn. On the ground floor there was a pub called Dangerous Dan Saloon and it was full of miners, hundreds of them.
When I got there it was crowded and most of the miners were fairly drunk. There were only a dozen women in the place, two of them sitting at my table, and it started to get ugly with guys coming up and hitting on the ladies. At one point, I had to stand up and take some men to task because the vulgarity was out of hand. I was afraid. I knew it would not take much to start a fight and have the whole place explode with flying chairs and bottles like in a Hollywood movie.
I insisted we should leave, saying I was tired and things were getting rough. Still, the ladies wanted to stay. I guess Stompin’ Tom, the famous Canadian country singer knew what he was talking about in that song of his, “Sudbury Saturday Night.” As the night wore on, Morrison invited me to spend the weekend with her in Sudbury. It was Thursday night and I had to think fast because I was a married man. I agreed, on condition that I be allowed to leave at that moment and get some sleep. I was up early the next morning and thinking how to get out of the commitment. I called my secretary in Toronto and asked her to call the Sudbury office looking for me. She was supposed to leave a message with Morrison saying I was wanted in North Bay Saturday morning because there was a major problem on a big project.
Now, it so happened that the Armstrong Brothers had a major heavy project in North Bay so this was partially true. I also told my assistant in Toronto I would call her back when I was in the Sudbury office and say I could not possibly get to North Bay because I was tied up with the local’s business. The plan was that she would then call me back and say that the company’s labour relations representative, Dan Fryszuck, had already left Brampton for North Bay and she was unable to reach him. Of course, in those days there were no cell phones so everything went as planned. I told Morrison “duty first” and escaped.
Sadly, within a year I had to fire Morrison. Our welfare plan was almost bankrupt and after an investigation we found out that she had been lax with claims. During layoffs, for example, there was a surge of sick pay claims. Of course, we all support the members and their needs but drawing sick pay during layoffs was hurting other members who were also paying into the plan. Morrison’s problem was that she wanted to be popular with the members and she sure succeeded there. The day after her firing there were pickets in front of our office. In Toronto, I received a number of phone calls on her behalf. One of them was from the chancellor of Laurentian University. The first thing I said was: “You are calling for Anne Morrison, right?”
“How do you know?”
“Because the next call I am expecting on her behalf will be from the Pope.”
He laughed and asked me to do the best I could. Elie Martel, the NDP MPP for Sudbury, also called; he invited me to his suite that night at the Royal York Hotel. I knew Elie well. He was a very good person. Privately, he agreed with me regarding the reason for termination but asked for a political compromise. We agreed to take Morrison back but took away her authority for the benefits plan, on condition she start looking for another job. Everything worked out as agreed. Later, I was told Morrison had moved to Ottawa and, being a bright person and knowing how to move within political circles, she made major strides in her career.
* * *
Another of my great memories of that Sudbury adventure involved Gallagher dropping by to talk with some miners in a bar and discovering that they thought some of Dravo’s operations were unsafe. The next day he closed down all Dravo operations and took a committee to management with a list of safety deficiencies. Dravo agreed to many of them but not all, claiming the mine safety inspectors had cleared those items. Gallagher dug in and continued the strike which was a problem because Dravo was a multinational company and did not take kindly to being pushed around by a local union. It launched legal action against Gallagher and the local. It meant we might have to back off the strike and incur substantial legal costs. I knew things had gotten out of hand and that, by coincidence, that week the secretary treasurer of our International was in Toronto.
Verne Reid was a wonderful and humane man. In the course of talking to him about other issues, I explained the Dravo situation and said I would have to rush up to Sudbury to sort things out. Reid immediately offered to help. It turned out he knew one of the top executives at Dravo in the U.S. and would personally reach out to him. To smooth things politically with Gallagher, I suggested Reid send a telegram—that is how things were done back before text messaging and email—stating that he was fully aware that safety was a prime issue and that he would make it his priority on returning to the U.S.
Gallagher read the telegram to the striking miners and recommended that they return to work since the International had stepped up on their behalf and would have a high-level discussion. It was an out for him and gave him an exit with dignity. I never told him that I had arranged the whole thing.
Not long after, Verne Reid died and I went to his funeral in Tacoma, Washington, where I met Bob Connerton, the general counsel for the International union. We were at the funeral parlour and it was time to pay our respects yet Bob called me into a side room, wanting to talk business.
“Bob,” I said. “I came here to pay my last respects, not to talk business.”
With that, I left. To me, it’s about people first.
Mining, like construction, is often boom or bust. With new nickel mining operations starting up around the world, Sudbury nickel mining began to decrease in importance. Inco laid off a number of employees and the United Steelworkers of America negotiated a non-subcontracting-out clause in the next collective agreement. The upshot was our membership was reduced to less than two hundred people, which was not enough to sustain an office and full-time staff. We reached an agreement with the International to transfer our members to the Sudbury local.
This kind of thing, being driven by external forces, never sits well with the membership and it was soon clear the members were not happy in the new local. A small delegation came to visit me in my house in Toronto twice to petition for a return of Local 183 but there was nothing I could do. Still, it was an honour and privilege to have represented such a militant and hard-working group of Canadians as those miners. Looking back on my career, I still consider it one of my greatest achievements to have represented and served them.