The years 1968 to 1972 were filled with tension and strife in the construction industry. With new technologies like drywall pushing some workers and companies out of business, and with intense competition between developers and unions, it was what one observer called “a propitious time for illegal activities.” The Metropolitan Toronto Police logged four incidents of threats, 234 of wilful damage, fifteen of assault, twenty-three of arson, and five explosions as well as uncounted thefts and break-ins related to construction throughout that time. There were reports of apartment buildings being burned down and of screws being loosened on construction scaffolding, among other acts of sabotage. One union local hired a former professional boxer with no previous labour experience as a “business agent.” The exterior of a Toronto lathing company was strafed with bullets from semi-automatic weapons, and later dynamited. “The construction business,” one contractor later testified, “is not a lily-white business, as we all know.”
In 1972, Dr. Morton Shulman, an NDP Member of Ontario’s Provincial Parliament, began raising in the legislature allegations of criminal corruption involving contractors and a number of building trades unions, particularly in the drywall and tile and terrazzo industries. Later he expanded his horizons to the concrete forming industry. His constant hammering at these issues left the Ontario government of Conservative Premier Bill Davis no option but to call a Royal Commission to investigate the charges. It was known formally as the Royal Commission on Certain Sectors of the Building Industry, and informally as the Waisberg Commission, named after the judge who presided over it, Harry Waisberg. The commission was established in 1973 and it added more controversy and conflict to the industry because everyone was under the microscope.
One of the catalysts for Shulman’s tirades was the shooting of Bruno Zanini. I remember one afternoon in the summer of 1972 I got a call from someone saying he was Bruno Zanini’s son and demanding to know why I had shot his father. I thought it was a prank and hung up but the next day I read in the newspaper that Zanini had in fact been shot in the leg in the basement garage of an apartment building on the afternoon of August 23. At this point in his life, Zanini had been unsuccessfully involved in trying to organize workers in concrete forming and other sectors. He had been convicted of possession of burglary tools after driving two accomplices to a home where they broke in. However, he appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, where his lawyer argued that Zanini should never have been convicted of possession of burglary tools because there was never any finding that there were burglary tools in his possession. In October 1967 the Supreme Court of Canada in Zanini v. The Queen, [1967] S.C.R. 715 agreed, setting aside the conviction and upholding the appeal. And now Zanini was back and very much involved in the trade union movement. I’ll let the Waisberg Commission tell the story:
That very morning Zanini had been talking to Romeo Di Battista to raise money. Zanini described it as money to be advanced by Di Battista for union organization, while Di Battista described it as an ordinary loan sought by Zanini. As Zanini was the only eyewitness, it would be fair to use his own words to describe what took place.
Mr. Zanini: ‘I couldn’t see very much, I could just see so much of the side of his face, looked smooth, I could see he was dark hair, sort of a little bit of a tinge of olive oil complexion but he was scruffy, maybe a long beard or big beard, something hasn’t shaved, and that’s as far as it went. I didn’t pay any more attention.’
Mr. Shepherd (Commission Counsel): ‘And you didn’t see the other man at all other than to realize there was a man there?’
A: ‘There was two of them, one was very dark complexion, the one that turned his back to me was fair. I imagine he was about 5 foot 9, the fellow in the dark complexion that came towards me, he was sort of a slight—maybe 5 foot 6 or seven.’
Q: ‘Would it be correct to say you told the police on their arrival that one man was as you have described, and really all you can say about the other man was that he was male and he was white; is that correct?’
A: ‘That’s correct.’
Q: ‘What did you do?’
A: ‘I proceeded to my car, 287, the slot where I had my car, got into it and the car just wouldn’t start. I did it four times, what the heck comes here. As I stepped out there was a fellow with a flashlight kept putting it in my face. I paid no attention, I thought maybe it was a joke or something, so I just don’t pay any attention but just as I got in front of my door, he was twelve feet approximately, give and take, I couldn’t say for sure, Mr. Shepherd, I figure around that and the flashlight was constantly in my face. He said, “Hold it. Don’t Move.” Ping, Ping. It was all over.’
Q: ‘You indicate two sounds?’
A: ‘Yes.’
Q: ‘Are you hearing two shots or one shot and on echo?’
A: ‘Well, you know, I am practically deaf in my right ear. I heard ping, ping, just like that.’
Q: ‘Did you feel something strike you?’
A: ‘Oh, yes, very sharp and my leg just buckled and I went down. Then all of a sudden, just seeing like that, and I turned around and looked and the fellow got into the station-wagon and they drove away. I looked, it was a white-coloured one with a purple or red stripe in the centre right across the body.’
Q: ‘And that’s all he said to you, just “Hold it”?’
A: ‘“Hold it, don’t move.” Ping, ping, that was the end.’
After the shooting someone phoned his apartment and told his sons that he had just been shot. The children arrived immediately armed for battle, but of course the assailants had fled. Zanini expressed his views as follows.
Mr. Shepherd: ‘Can you assist us as to anything else surrounding the events of the shooting itself, or do I have it all now?’
Mr. Zanini: ‘Well, leading to the shooting, why I was shot—or was this what you are referring to Mr. Shepherd? I have ideas why I was shot, but I am not certain. And I am not sure as to the reasons why they wanted to shoot me, the motives.’
Q: ‘So long as it is understood it is your surmise, is it correct to say that your surmise is that someone in the labour movement resented your activities in going about speaking to the men?’
A: ‘And the contractors.’
Q: ‘And the contractors as well?’
A: ‘Positive. Positive. That is why the contractors are all paying the men right now. There is no chiselling going on because this Royal Commission is sitting.’
Zanini claimed he was shot to keep him quiet about the corruption he was investigating in the concrete forming industry and Dr. Shulman backed him up. The commission later heard wiretap evidence that a bouncer by the name of Frank “Angel” Veltri had been paid $1,500 for the shooting.
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In reaction to all this, the Ontario government expanded the Royal Commission’s terms of reference to include the concrete forming industry and Local 183. We found ourselves the first to be investigated and police officers came, took all kinds of records from our union office, and called many of our representatives to be questioned separately. I guess they were a little frustrated because they could not find anything wrong. They even apparently asked one of our representatives: “How do you hide money in the local?”
All kinds of people were saying all kinds of things but no one could prove anything. For example, in the spring of 1973 we held an election for the office of president, which is really an honorary position with a lot of respect accorded to the person who occupies it. Carl Filipazzo ran and lost against Gerry Gallagher and he turned around and complained to the Waisberg Commission about all kinds of skulduggery during the vote and the ballot counting. Filipazzo, being Italian and knowing the majority of members were also Italians, could not accept that they did not vote for him. What he really did not want to accept was that Gerry had a fine reputation and that, with my strong support, he had won the election fair and square.
We were forced to reconstruct for the police all the details of the election and the process we had followed. As it turned out they were duly satisfied with our supporting evidence and accepted that the election was truly free and fair. Many contractors and union representatives, including myself and others, were called to testify at the Waisberg Commission. Some approached their testimony with caution but I saw it as an opportunity to table some of my thoughts on trade unions and organizing construction workers.
Around that time, I had been sponsored by our International to attend a three-month trade union study program at Harvard University. The course was extremely interesting and I learned many things, including how U.S. labour laws came about and how other jurisdictions approached labour legislation and practices. Most impressive was the Australian model where labour strife is kept at a minimum with a system that sees most disputes settled by labour boards. I also learned that our union constitution required a local election every three years, a district council election every four years, and an international election every five years because the whole system was based on American labour law. At our next International convention, I submitted a resolution, which was adopted, that local elections be held every four years if permitted by law. It also led me to present to Judge Waisberg some research which had a dramatic impact on labour law in Ontario.
Upon my return to Toronto from Harvard, I was called by the commission counsel, a Mr. Sheppard. I went with our lawyer, Ray Koskie, and Sheppard congratulated us on our record keeping, noting that they found nothing wrong with our activities. He encouraged me to carry on along the same path.
There was a good reason why our books were in order. In 1968, when I was the secretary treasurer, I hired accountant Al Resnick to give us an opinion on our record keeping. He was blunt: our records were not only unacceptable, but they could be open to unpleasant interpretation. “Not only must you do the right things,” he added, “but you must be in a position to prove yourself impeccably clean.” Transparency was the rule. We hired him to straighten our system and tasked him to be vigilant and critical on anything and everything. He did what we asked and over the years we benefited from his work and our self-imposed discipline.
Unfortunately, a number of contractors in the drywall, tile and terrazzo businesses and some union representatives, including Bruno Zanini and Charlie Irvine, did not come out too well. They were taking payments from contractors, selling out the workers they represented. Here are some excerpts from the Waisberg Commission:
There is evidence that the following union agents received payments from employers under circumstances that involved the interests of their employees who, at the time, were the principals of the union agents.
Mr. Justice Waisberg also took the time to detail his observations on some of the other characters:
I found Agostino Simone to be an unusual character. On the one hand, he truly reflected the members of his union, Lathers Local 562. On the other hand, however, he did not seem disturbed by the fact that he had personally profited from his position. He admitted receiving a number of substantial payments from contractors who, at the time, had collective agreements with his union. In his evidence he told of a proposed interest in Romanelli’s business; he described meetings of the lathing and dry wall contractors where money was collected for him. He told of contributions to the building of his home, and of freezers that were given to him and Frank Fior by a contractor.
Mr. Justice Waisberg continued:
On 8 December 1969, Inspector Dorigo, who at that time was investigating the violence in the concrete forming sector of the building industry, interviewed Zanini. Simone had stated that Di Lorenzo had made a payment of $1500 to Zanini which had been delivered to him by Di Lorenzo’ s foreman, George Orla. After some discussion, Zanini did admit to Dorigo that he had in fact received such a payment. The evidence of Inspector Dorigo was presented earlier in the discussion of the Leader office fire. It reveals that Di Lorenzo paid money to Zanini.
A number of charges were laid as a result of the Waisberg Commission investigation but not a single concrete forming contractor with a collective agreement with our local was ever accused of any wrongdoing nor were any of our union representatives. With a good relationship established with the judge and the commission counsel, I thought I would offer them some of the insight I had gained at Harvard. I had written my term paper on the evolution of the concrete forming industry in Toronto and its impact on the International Building Trades Unions. When preparing the term paper, I asked Harold Green for his assistance with the technical aspects of construction. He was very pleased to oblige. I sent a copy of the paper to Judge Waisberg who was quite intrigued and asked me if he could include it in his final report.
At Harvard, I reflected on the Australian system and I asked our lawyer, Ray Koskie, to prepare a brief for Judge Waisberg asking for changes to Ontario labour law which would reflect its certification and grievance settlement systems. The most important requests were: to reduce the percentage needed for an automatic certification from 65 per cent to 55 per cent; to put the onus on employers to prove employees were not fired for union activities and not the other way around (this seems simple but in law it is a very important difference and it is of great help to unions during organizing campaigns); for construction grievances to be settled as quickly as possible by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (at that time, the Ontario Federation of Labour published a booklet called Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied and we made it part of our brief); and that the parent union organization must show just cause for placing a local under trusteeship.
I still remember as if it were yesterday when Koskie and I met Judge Waisberg in his office to present our brief. The judge was a fair person who agreed with us on almost every point. He fully endorsed our proposal for the settlement of construction grievances saying he had acted as an arbitrator in Sudbury and was aware of how long private arbitration took and how expensive it was, making it impractical in the construction industry. The reality was, by the time the process is completed, so is the project and the company may well be out of business. He disagreed only with our last request. In his opinion, a local was the branch of a multinational corporation, which had the right to impose supervision.
Having filed my papers with Judge Waisberg, I did not expect that much would happen. How wrong I was. The Conservative Government of Ontario under Premier Bill Davis took Waisberg’s recommendations seriously, enshrining most of them as amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. The most important was the introduction of Section 124 (now Section 133), dealing with union grievances. In the past it took months if not years to take a grievance through private arbitration and was quite expensive. Section 124 stated that “notwithstanding” the language of a collective agreement, either party can take a grievance to the Ontario Labour Relations Board and have a hearing within fourteen days from the date of application and, at that time, at no cost. No other jurisdiction in North America has such progressive legislation to this day.
If the leaders of the Brandon Hall Group had had the foresight to propose such legislation at the earlier Goldenberg Commission they might still be around today. They chose instead to disregard the law. Their demise proves that over the long run it is far more beneficial to everyone for leaders to work with the law, and to work to change the law if they find it unsatisfactory. All construction and building unions in Ontario greatly benefited from this new legislation. The construction industry gained stability and improved labour relations from these changes. I am proud of the role I played to drive that change and some of the other changes that passed into the Ontario Labour Relations Act and to this day I consider it my significant contribution to the labour movement.