In the spring of 1983, Tony Lucas, a Portuguese union representative I had hired in the early 1970s, came to visit me at the district council office. He said that if I was not going to return to Local 183, he was going to run against Reilly in the upcoming spring election. It was for a four-year term and he said he was running because he was unhappy with the way Reilly was running the local and he felt he could do better. He said other representatives felt the same way. Lucas was a good man, loyal and hard-working, but I did not think he would be a suitable manager for a complex organization like Local 183 and I tried unsuccessfully to persuade him not to run.
There was another Portuguese whom I had hired with an eye to grooming for the job, Antonio “Tony” Dionisio. Tony was a bright young man with some Canadian education. He was working as a welder in subway construction when I hired him to be our first complaints department officer. The complaints department was created because we had so many issues from members about job sites and there were not enough people in the office to meet with them and track down the complaints when they came to the office. Of course, it was our job to listen to them but our union representatives were usually out of the office on the job sites or organizing new members. They left the office staff to deal with the guys walking in with complaints. We needed a more efficient way to manage them. Tony’s main function was to detail the complaints and channel them to the right union representatives to be dealt with in a speedy manner. In this position, Dionisio developed a fairly good idea of the complexity of the local, which had been my plan for his training. Tony was later promoted to a full-time representative and later to an assistant manager.
Lucas stood a good chance of being elected since at that time a majority of members were Portuguese, hard-working folks who tended to be loyal to each other, pretty much like the Italians. I decided to run which meant I would hold an office at both Local 183 and the district council. I spoke to Reilly, who was like a brother to me, and offered him the positions of secretary treasurer and senior assistant manager. I explained why we had to do this. At first he was resentful but later he came around. A slate was prepared for the nominations supported by all full-time representatives. The candidates on the slate were all elected and I was elected by acclamation. Thus, I found myself running the largest local and the largest district council of the International Labourers Union.
I had recommended that the salary of the local manager, which must be established before nominations, be set at one dollar a year if the position was occupied by a member receiving a full-time salary by another body of the International. To cover both offices I had to rotate from my office at the district council to those of Local 183, dealing with different secretaries and staff and a number of lawyers. It was not easy but I think I managed well and I was always re-elected by acclamation to both positions.
Of course, there were others who saw things differently. Gargaro, for example, found an opportunity to attack me. When I became manager at both the local and the district council, he found a clause in the constitution stating that one person could not hold two full-time positions, although this had been done in the past with Henry Mancinelli. He wrote to the International in Washington asking for me to be removed from one of the offices. At that time, the general president was Angelo Fosco, a good person who always tried to accommodate the locals. He rarely used an iron fist although he had it within his power. He granted me special dispensation, as was his right under the constitution, with one caveat: that I renew the request for special dispensation at each future nomination. I suspect both Coia and Connerton had supported my position with Fosco. Gargaro was eventually defeated at his own local election and Local 506’s new manager became Carmine Principato who immediately re-established a relationship of mutual co-operation and respect with the district council, Local 183, and with me personally. From that point, I had no more opposition within the district council other than friendly and sometimes strong differences of opinions with some of the managers of various locals which is only natural in any democratic organization.
While this internal political game was playing out, we started organizing carpenters working in the GTA housing sector, better known as “house framers” and sometimes as “nail bangers.” House framers are a special group of building tradesmen. Most of them are paid as pieceworkers, meaning they are paid by the work performed rather than by an hourly rate. Their work is subcontracted from a main carpenter contractor who, initially, gets his contract from the house builder. House framers are a highly productive group of workers because, obviously, the more they produce the more they earn. They are also a fairly independent bunch of guys. To some of them, hunting and fishing are more important than making money.
To be more precise, the framers’ remuneration is based on square footage and the type of house being built, such as single, semi-detached, or townhouse. There are many other factors to take into account when setting the amount they’ll be paid, such as how many corners are in the house, the roof’s pitch, and whether the garage is separate or incorporated into the house. They usually work in a team of two with some helpers and in effect are really running small businesses. In the GTA at that time, there were around 1,500 framers and we were competing to recruit them against the Carpenters whose local was under the leadership of Gus Simone.
My old friend Gus was an astute operator who merged his Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers International Union with the Carpenters Union and was granted a new charter for the drywallers he came to represent. He saw the end of the plastering industry and of his own trade, “the lather installers.” Charlie Irvine, the famous International vice-president of the Operative Plasterers and Cement Mason International Association, fought tooth and nail to block drywall as a new industry in the middle of the 1960s and refused to organize it. Gus chose to embrace it and his local became a strength to be reckoned with in Toronto.
We followed our method of organizing, the slow method of certification, as prescribed by the Labour Relations Act. Gus used the old Irvine method: mass meetings and direct contact with the employers. Arthur Coia tried to make peace between us and held a meeting at the Constellation Hotel up by the airport in Toronto. Given the nature of the industry, it was difficult to make any compromise because the only practical solution was for one side to concede to the other. At the meeting I presented a proposal to Gus which on the surface looked to be a very reasonable compromise but in substance was quite different. Only those familiar with house framing would have sussed out what I was trying to do but Coia and most other building trades’ union representatives who worked in the ICI sector thought it was fair. I was playing to Gus’s personality: good heart but impetuous.
Gus was upset at my proposal: “No way!” But he did not propose an alternative and missed pointing out the weakness of my “most reasonable proposal.”
“You see, Arthur,” I said as I left. “I tried but you cannot reason with Gus.”
In the spring of 1983 Gus called a carpenters’ strike in the manner of Irvine and Zanini. He sent flying squads to a large number of subdivision projects and had a reasonable amount of success. It was a deliberate attempt to expand his union. Many of our members were stopped by intimidation and we were forced to take legal action at the Ontario Labour Relations Board to allow our members to work. The fight was not with the employers: it was about which union had the right to sign which trades and there were more than 2,000 memberships up for grabs. The builders were caught in the crossfire.
It was a time-consuming process before the Labour Board. In many subdivisions, house framing contracts were given to contractors who held agreements with our local, with Gus’s local, and also with non-union contractors. We had to use blueprints to map out where Gus was allowed to picket and where he was not. Mike Reilly did a good job on our behalf in limiting Gus’s ability to picket. On the other hand, Gus was helped in his cause by a number of key contractors who simply wanted to bring stability to what was becoming a free-for-all.
Gus’s strike was reported on the front pages of the Toronto newspapers, particularly because there were a number of “accidental fires.” New houses were going up in smoke. Imagine that. Projects in Scarborough and Markham were hit. Four houses were demolished and two were damaged, according to the Toronto Star.
While Gus had some important builders on his side, generally the house builders did not like dealing with Gus. They much preferred Local 183’s peace-and-stability approach which they had become accustomed to over the years. The same feeling was shared by some main carpenter contractors but after a few weeks of Gus’s strike tactics they were ready to capitulate as the “accidental fires” kept happening. I got a call from Tim Armstrong, the Ontario Deputy Minister of Labour, a highly regarded and respected civil servant, to meet with him and John Caruthers, the international vice-president of the Carpenters Union in Canada. Armstrong advised me that the meeting was going to be held on a Saturday in a suite at the Royal York Hotel but that I should to be ready to carry on into Sunday if it became necessary. I don’t know why he didn’t invite Gus Simone but at that point I knew this was to be the showdown. I went to the meeting on that Saturday morning with Armstrong, Armstrong’s assistant, Vic Pathe, a very capable mediator well known for settling difficult labour disputes, and John Carruthers of the Carpenters. After the initial niceties which precede such meetings, Armstrong put down his coffee and leaned in to the table with a serious look on his face. He underlined to all present that the labour dispute was dominating the news media and it was in the public interest to put an end to it. The Ontario government was very concerned, he said, and it was appealing to both sides to use our common sense and play fair and find a satisfactory compromise to end the dispute. He said he admired and respected both of us but that it had to end.
A deep silence followed his appeal and then I said: “We too have the utmost respect for both of you but I am afraid the decision is not in our hands [meaning Carruthers and myself]. It really falls to the Ontario government.”
“I don’t understand,” Armstrong replied.
“Next Tuesday morning there is a meeting between the Premier, the Attorney General, and the Minister of Housing,” I said.
Now, Armstrong was surprised that we knew this sensitive information. He nevertheless confirmed the meeting was planned. At that time, we had a good relationship with Pat Kinsella, president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Earlier, we had made discreet inquiries with Kinsella about some projects being considered which would provide good employment opportunities to our members. He told us the matter was going to be discussed at that meeting.
“Do you mind, Tim, if I speak to my ‘brother’ John alone?” I asked Tim Armstrong.
“No, go ahead,” Tim replied.
So Carruthers and I went into the bedroom of the suite.
“John,” I asked. “Do you know why the Premier, the Attorney General, and the Minister of Housing are meeting?”
“No,” he replied.
“They are going to call for another Royal Commission inquiry. They are tired of all the sabotage reported in the newspapers. Have you ever been through a Royal Commission?”
“No,” replied Caruthers again.
“I have, John,” I said, referring to the Waisberg Commission. “I know you are a very honest and good person but can you say the same for certain persons in your union? The commission will check everything, even the bank accounts of your secretary, and if they do not find something, they will look deeper and deeper until eventually they find some skeletons in a closet somewhere. The only way to avoid it is to call off your strike.”
John went quiet. He knew a Royal Commission is a serious thing. It’s like a Senate or Congressional committee in the U.S. and has far-reaching powers to compel people to testify and to hold them accountable.
We went back to the sitting room of the suite. I saluted my host by saying, “There is nothing really we can discuss, we better wait until after Tuesday,” and I left. Both Armstrong and Pathe were none too happy with my play. They had cleared their calendars and obviously were under firm instructions to end the strike and the conflict between the two unions by Sunday.
Gus was holding regular meeting with the strikers every Monday night so at that meeting Gus called off the strike on Carruthers’s direction. It was a failure in the end, although he had come very close to success without knowing it. Despite this, and the ongoing tensions between our unions, we remained friends, which is the way it should be.
Subsequently, Local 183 sped up our organizing efforts. In a short time, we represented 90 per cent of the house framers, adding another 1,500 members to Local 183 taking us to around 10,000 members.