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Militants, Mobsters and Mavericks
The Men Who Built Modern Toronto in the 1960s–70s
This is a gripping look at the underbelly of Toronto’s explosive postwar growth in the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when labour leaders, politicians, contractors and crime figures battled for control of the city’s booming construction industry. Toronto’s highways, subways, and skyscrapers were built by immigrant workers under dangerous conditions, while they fought for fair wages and better safety measures. Militants, Mobsters and Mavericks recounts the story of fiery union leader Gerry Gallagher and his cerebral successor Giovanni Stefanini. Along with them comes a remarkable cast of Toronto figures of the era, including journalist-turned-politician Frank Drea, idealistic coroner Morton Shulman, and Hamilton Mafia boss Johnny Papalia. Bombings at job sites, workplace safety disasters claiming the lives of Italian and Portuguese workers, police battles with defiant union members — Gilberto Fernandes’s gripping and action-packed narrative captures the fierce struggles of the era. This little-known history casts new light on the ongoing relations between provincial politicians and powerful construction unions, with their more than 75,000 Toronto-area members, today.
Contributors
Gilberto Fernandes
Gilberto Fernandes is a visiting scholar and instructor in the Department of History at York University. He is the author of several academic publications on the history of the Portuguese diaspora in North America, and Ontario's construction industry and building trade unions. He is an award-winning public historian with several credits, including documentaries, exhibitions, community archives, websites, podcasts, walking tours, and theatre. Among these are the award-winning project City Builders: A History of Immigrant Construction Workers in Postwar Toronto, as well as the Laborem Ex Machina: A History of Construction Machinery and Operating Engineers in Canada.
