On August 18, 1975, Michael Starr, chairman of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, as it was then called, appointed me to the newly established Joint Consultative Committee. This committee was made up of two labour representatives, two employer representatives, two from the WCB, and two from the public at large. The other labour committee member was the safety director of the Ontario Federation of Labour. The committee’s role was to comment on proposed changes to the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Ontario and the administration of the Workmen’s Compensation Board. Later on, we initiated our own proposals. It was a very useful experience and I think we made a substantial contribution to WCB policies and procedures as well as changes to the Act.
They were not earth-shattering amendments but very useful to injured workers. At the time, the big issue was that the process discriminated against injured workers. In fact, the year before, injured workers had formed the Union of Injured Workers (UIW) to highlight their cause with the government and the WCB. The key issue was the definition of pensions for permanent partial disabilities caused on the job. We were sympathetic to injured workers but one of the problems we were unable to sort out was back injuries, a constant problem, especially in construction.
I would resign from this committee in September 1983 because of various other commitments but it gave me great insight into the political hierarchy. I was also gaining visibility myself at the top levels of the Ontario labour scene and one evening in 1977, while playing cards in my office, I got a call from Dr. Bette Stephenson, then the Ontario Minister of Labour. She called on my private line, a number known to very few people. Even fewer people would have known I would be at the office at 9 p.m. playing cards, although it was something we did from time to time during the snowy months.
I set up my desk like a kitchen table because I did not want members or other visitors sitting across a desk and feeling uncomfortable or intimidated. A kitchen table desk was more informal and made the atmosphere more familiar especially for Italians who like to discuss problems around their own kitchen tables. It was also good for playing cards!
I was curious when I realized it was Dr. Stephenson on the line and even more curious to know why she was calling.
“John,” she said, “I want you to be a controller on the Workmen’s Compensation Board, and I don’t want no for an answer!”
I was surprised at both the time of the call and the subject matter. The job was a full-time, high-level government job with higher pay and good security. Also, my Local 183 job always depended on me being re-elected. It was tempting. I thanked her and said I would think about it. She seemed a bit disappointed that I did not give her an immediate yes.
I did think long and hard about the offer but declined for a number of reasons. I felt my union building was just beginning and I was not thrilled at the idea of losing my freedom of movement and being tied to an office job. There were other reasons but it mostly did not feel like my true destiny. Dr. Stephenson was a good Minister of Labour and I would have been proud to serve her. She improved safety legislation and in particular she strengthened the right of an employee to refuse unsafe work. Her colleague Dr. Bob Elgie was also a good Minister of Labour. I managed to embarrass myself when I was sitting at the table with him during a union Christmas dinner and blurted out: “Finally, we have a minister who is not a lawyer!” He looked at me sternly and replied: “But I am also a lawyer!” I should note that there was another Liberal Minister of Labour who had been appointed by the David Peterson government in 1987 who was very good to work with: Greg Sorbara. He later became Ontario Minister of Finance.
Still, as I mulled over Dr. Stephenson’s call, I reminded myself that I had not enjoyed my experiences with government agencies. Premier Bill Davis had appointed me as a director of the Ontario Housing Corporation (OHC), at that time the second largest landlord in North America after New York’s Public Housing Authority. It was terrible. There were usually monthly meetings, sometimes twice a month, lasting a whole afternoon and into the night. The weekend before each meeting, a courier would deliver a couple of thick agendas. I had little free time before but with this appointment I had none at all. I made no real contribution to OHC, primarily because I just did not have the time to dedicate to the role in order to understand and analyze the many issues the board had to deal with.
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My real job was running a large, growing, and diversified union local but there were always these pressures from either the government or the labour movement pulling me in different directions. It came to a head around 1979. We had a problem with the district council and I realized I was going to have to step up and put my leadership on the line even if it meant moving away from Local 183, which was a painful choice. It was an issue of politics on many levels. The Laborers International Union’s constitution consisted of three parts: the first applicable to the International per se, the second to an area district council, and the last to the locals. The district councils were created to coordinate and control certain activities of the locals in a geographical area, primarily a large metropolitan area such as Chicago or New York or part of a state. In 1969, the International chartered a district council for all locals in Ontario. The first manager was my friend Mike Reilly. He worked hard and tried to take over the negotiation of most agreements as per the district council’s constitution. However, he met fierce resistance from most local managers, jealous of their independence. In early 1973, Reilly approached me, asking to come back to Local 183. “Look,” he said, “I have a big family and cannot stay away for long and Ontario is a big province.”
I welcomed him back with open arms and appointed him as my right-hand man. Others spread rumours that the real reason he quit was that he was not going to be re-elected but to me it did not matter why he quit, I was just glad that he was back with us. Taking Reilly’s place was Henry Mancinelli, the manager of the Hamilton local. Mancinelli brought a different attitude. He promoted greater freedom among the locals. Over the years Henry and I became good friends and helped each other but in 1975, Henry also quit and went back to Hamilton.
This in itself was a problem. The district council is very important to our local. The union constitution gives it the power to negotiate and approve all local agreements. This makes sense in a metropolitan area like Toronto but less so across a province as diversified as Ontario, which is larger in land mass than either Texas or California. It makes the process more cumbersome and less democratic. There were other problems, too. There were tensions between Toronto and other parts of the province. Everybody elsewhere in Ontario hates Toronto, even though Toronto pays for most of the services they enjoy. We were also uncomfortable about how even though Local 183 represented 100 per cent of the members in certain collective agreements, such as with the apartment builders, we had only six votes out of fifty-six at the district council where agreements were ratified.
The deeper issue, however, was that Local 183 was the only local organized in the residential sector. There is a different mentality between the ICI (industrial, commercial, institutional) and the residential sectors. Like day and night. ICI unions are focused on a single trade. They are more rigid and deal primarily with general contractors. The residential union deals with multiple trades, and is flexible in dealing with family-owned contractors and home builders. The flexibility factor was always very important to me. My love of history and military strategy convinced me flexibility was the key to the success of many commanders on the battlefield. I could not and would not allow other interests to confine Local 183 to a straitjacket. So in 1975, I asked one of our representatives, Mike O’Brien, to run for the job and with the alliance of Ontario locals, he was elected as district council manager.
Unfortunately, by the next election, in 1979, it was evident he was not going to be re-elected. Political alliances had changed and there was a new manager at Local 506, Mike Gargaro. He resented the progress of Local 183 and wanted to claim back the residential sector. He tried to lure away two of my key assistant managers by offering them substantially higher pay but I cut him off thanks to a tip I got from one of my representatives.
Gargaro was no pushover. He skilfully united a number of Ontario locals in a common front against us and put forward his own candidate for district council manager, Ray Ford, the previous business manager of Local 506. Ray and I were good friends. We had attended the Canadian Labour College in 1963 together and when he became the manager of Local 506, the two of us tried to formulate a plan to amalgamate certain operations of the two locals, and eliminate duplication. The proposal was shot down at the executive board of Local 506 which, of course, was led by Gargaro, who later dethroned Ford and became the manager himself.
I then decided to throw my hat into the ring since O’Brien did not have a chance. I lost by two votes. However, Gargaro’s games became more transparent and shortly afterwards the Sudbury local’s four delegates left the Gargaro alliance and joined us, giving us a two-vote majority. The manager of the Sudbury local knew something was not right. In Chicago, during an international union conference, he was tapped by a small group of Ontario conspirators to frame me by putting drugs in my suitcase. The plot failed because they were too cheap to come up with the cash to buy the drugs and the manager, having seen how far they would go, wanted nothing to do with them and crossed over.
Our alliance dominated the bimonthly meetings of the district council and we were able to neutralize Gargaro’s moves for a couple of years. In 1981, Ray Ford came to see me and said: “I am tired of doing Gargaro’s bidding, I want to quit. You should be the manager of the council and I would like to be the administrator of the Provincial Training Fund.”
Before he would quit, however, he wanted the backing of Arthur E. Coia, the chairman of the Provincial Training Fund which had been set up by the International. At first it might have seemed a risky strategy because Gargaro was so attached to Coia. Every time Arthur came to Toronto, Gargaro would pick him up at the airport with the local’s Lincoln and chauffeur him around town, taking him to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What Gargaro did not know was that Coia was a smart man and easily able to differentiate friendship from union business. I called Arthur, who was in Florida at a union meeting, and asked to meet.
“I can’t come up now, but why don’t you come down here,” he said. “I can see you tomorrow night after a working dinner, say around 9:30 p.m.”
He gave me the name of a hotel in Fort Lauderdale and asked me to be discreet. I asked O’Brien to come with me since I really do not like flying, especially alone, and we went to Florida the next day. Arthur was about an hour late. He apologized for the delay and listened intently to our story. I told him about Ford’s intention and his request for Coia’s support. Coia asked me if I wanted to be the manager of the district council.
“Yes, but I doubt the executive board will appoint me because out of seven votes, I have only one,” I replied.
“Leave it to me,” said Arthur. “I will take care of that.”
The following week, Coia came to Toronto, and Ford resigned with a commitment from Coia who then met with the executive board of the district council. Three hours later, he came out and said: “The job is yours if you want it.”
You have to understand I was in no mood to celebrate. I had to tender my resignation as business manager of Local 183 and it broke my heart. The local had meant everything to me. It had been the focus of all my energies and passion. I had grown so much with the organization, through all its ups and downs. I asked the local executive board to appoint Reilly to replace me and they did. The only thing Rita noticed was that the colour of my paycheque had changed.
“Did you change jobs?” she asked.
“It is all the same,” I replied, though it was not really true. I did not want to worry her.
The first few months were hell. The district council executive board members, with the exception of one, were stacked against me. They attacked me personally at every turn and I almost quit to go back to Local 183. It occurred to me that my quitting was what they wanted. I stayed, and slowly their attitudes turned around. One of them, Rocco D’Andrea, the business manager from Sarnia, confided to me they had feared a return of Reilly’s tactics and thought I was his agent. Only after they were fully convinced that I was my own man and that I was an asset to their locals did they open up and become loyal and true friends and staunch supporters. The exception was Gargaro.
I implemented two important programs for the locals. By increasing the per capita payment to the district council, mainly from Locals 183 and 506, we were able to pay for the locals’ legal expenses, which in some cases were considerable in areas such as jurisdictional disputes with other unions. The second was to hire regional organizers to help the locals to organize non-union contractors. We also inserted clauses into collective agreements for the collection of working dues to be remitted to the district council.
Gargaro tried to sabotage my programs by diverting the new funds to his local and I was forced to take the matter to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Coia even intervened to help Gargaro but he was not going to fight us at the district council. He asked me to withdraw the case and said that he would settle the matter and within a few weeks he sent Bob Connerton, the general counsel of the International, to meet with Gargaro and me.
“How much does Local 506 owe to the Council?” Bob asked. I gave him a number, which was actually twice the real figure, thinking that if they were going to shave it back, at least I would start high. Predictably, Gargaro complained it was too much.
“Okay, I recommend this amount,” said Connerton, jotting down a figure, which was 75 per cent of my inflated starting point.
“I don’t like it,” I replied, feigning disappointment. “But in the interest of co-operation with the International, I reluctantly accept it.” Gargaro had no choice but to go along, which meant the council got 25 per cent more than it was due.
In 1983, I ran for re-election to the district council and Gargaro ran one of his representatives, Tony Neil, a capable and well-respected man who had been a long-standing employee of the council. Tony won eight votes out of the fifty-six cast, those from his own local and a small industrial local whose manager was playing the parties against each other trying to leverage some benefit for himself. He picked the wrong horse. After that, no one ran against me and I won by acclamation each time.