Trades say Duffy was determined

Duffy, 66, died from a heart-related illness at the Southlake Regional Health Centre.

Joe Duffy, a former business manager and secretary treasurer with the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, died June 3 in a Newmarket hospital.

Duffy, 66, died from a heart-related illness at the Southlake Regional Health Centre.

Duffy joined the building trades council in the early 1980s and retired in December 1996.

The respect Duffy earned as the council’s leader extended beyond the construction industry to include political leaders of his time.

Russ Ramsay, who was provincial Minister of Labour in the early 1980s, attended Duffy’s retirement party.

“Russ Ramsay, who was quite an elderly man by that time, drove from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto to be at Duffy’s retirement party, because of the respect he had for Duffy,” said Patrick Dillon, current business manager and secretary treasurer of the building trades council.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Duffy played an important role in efforts to have the provincial government implement province-wide bargaining for individual skilled trades, replacing the previous regional bargaining units.

“Joe thought it was the right thing to do and was determined that it would be done, even though there was a lot of opposition to it at the time,” Dillon said.

Duffy’s foresight into the benefits of province-wide bargaining was later borne out by a study, commissioned by Ontario’s NDP government in the 1990s, which concluded that province-wide bargaining had proved beneficial for the construction industry, Dillon said.

In 1990, the province passed Bill 208, which amended the Occupational Health and Safety Act and broadened workplace safety requirements and responsibilities for both employers and employees, and gave employees the right to stop work in certain unsafe conditions.

Duffy played a key role in fighting the claim, made repeatedly at the time, that if workers were given the right to stop work in unsafe conditions, that right would be habitually misused.

During his career, Duffy held every position on the executive of Local 95 of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers.

In 1997, he received an award from the CSAO.