Trafford Publishing: John Bruce, O.B.E. Journeyman Plumber

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John Bruce, O.B.E. Journeyman Plumber

by Margaret Dowling and Donald R. Montgomery

194 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0122; ISBN 1-55212-457-6; US$20.00, C$24.00, EUR15.60, £10.90

John Bruce was one of Canada's most colourful, effective and longest-serving General Organizers of any North American union. This book covers the first 34 years of his life and includes a summary.

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About the Book

The material for this book has been selected from the papers that John left to the author, plus from many hours of taped interviews with John. Other material is from the Plumbers' Union and the National Archives.
John Bruce entered the plumbing and pipe-fitting industry in its Genesis. First came running water, then came plagues of cholera and typhoid fever and then proper drainage systems and sanitation.
It is not possible in one book to record the ninety-three years of John Bruce's life in any detail. This book endeavours to show the development of the man, his philosophy, creed and some of his accomplishments. It also attempts to show who he was, his faith, the development of his talents and the use to which they were put.
This book begins with his birth and ends when he put down the tools of his trade to become the General Organizer for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe-Fitting industry. An elected position that he held for more than a half-century.
John Bruce kept his family life separate and apart from John the unionist, socialist and activist.

About the Author

At the age of 20 Donald Montgomery was the youngest man ever appointed to the staff of the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee, predecessor to the United Steelworkers of America.
For 10 years beginning in 1943, he toured Eastern Ontario on a variety of organizing drives. Showing an early interest in the union as a community force, he encouraged the newly-organized Steel locals to become the nucleus of district labour councils.
Transferred to Toronto in 1953, Montgomery was soon appointed Steelworkers area supervisor for the Toronto-Barrie area, a position he maintained until his election as Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress in 1974.
In 1953 he was also elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Toronto and Lakeshore Labour Council and was re-elected to the same position on the merged Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto until 1964, when he was elected president of that 160,000-member organization. He was regularly re-elected president until his election to the CLC.
During his 10-year tenure as president of the Labour Council, Montgomery devoted much of his time to the community. He was a member of the board of directors of the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto; sat on the governing board of the United Appeal; served as a member of the Advisory Vocational Committee for the Borough of York board of education; was an active member of the John Howard Society; served on the board of directors of Riverdale hospital; served as a labour spokesman on the board of governors of the North York General Hospital, and was a member of the founding Zoological Society responsible for Toronto's new zoo.
He was also a founding member of the Labour Council Development Foundation, a co-ordinating body for co-op housing in Metro Toronto; a member of the board of directors of the National Institute for Social Assistance which helps newly arrived immigrant workers; and was the chief architect of Metropolitan Toronto Labour Council's political action programme that helped elect a majority of progressive candidates to City Council in 1972.
During his 10 years as Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress, Donald Montgomery served as a member of the following: Canadian Standards Association and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.
He also served on the AFL-CIO-CLC Liaison Committee and the Canadian Labour Congress International Affairs Committee; Public Relations Advisory Committee; Council for the Performing Arts; Aeronautical Advisory Board. He was chairman of the Council of Broadcast Unions; the Council of Maritime Unions; and the Advisory Committee of Aviation Unions. He is an executive member of I.N.A.S. (Canada); and a member of the Export Trade Development Board.
In 1984 he decided not to seek a sixth term as Secretary-Treasurer of the CLC and is now a consultant in industrial relations, interfacing with governments and works out of Ottawa and Toronto.
He has been awarded the Centennial Medal and the Silver Jubilee Medal by the Government of Canada and the Award of Merit by the Corporation of the City of Toronto.
He was born in Canora, Saskatchewan; received his schooling in Hamilton, Ontario; is married to Lou Eirene Huggard. They have two children.
MONTGOMERY, Donald R. - Peacefully early July 23, 2001 at Sunnybrook Hospital in his 82nd year. He is survived by his wife Lu. Children Charmiene and Kirk and grandchildren Sara, Rachel, Amanda and Kimberly. Best remembered for his work with United Steel Workers of America. The Toronto Labour Council and Canadian Labour Congress. Don was buried as requested in a private ceremony. Donations, in lieu of flowers, to Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre would be appreciated.

Excerpt

from Chapter 7
     In 1895, John Bruce became a journeyman plumber and immediately joined the Plumbers' Union. From the beginning, he was an active member. The union membership meetings were held each week. "This was one activity, which filled our hours," he explained. As if John with his many interests, need worry about filling his time.
     His grandfather Taylor who had lived in trying circumstances in England had come to Australia in 1855. He had been a farm labourer and teamster before immigrating to Port Melbourne. There he secured employment as a wagon driver. Later he became a stevedore. That same year the dockers formed their union. John Taylor was one of the charter members. John remembered his grandfather Taylor being on strike in 1891. Later that year, grandmother Taylor died and the widower moved in with his daughter and her family. Thirteen Bruces already occupied the house.
     John, now an accredited journeyman plumber, was not satisfied. When he began his apprenticeship outdoor plumbing was by degrees being replaced by indoor plumbing, an infant industry. His many days with Sandy repairing foul smelling polluted drains lived on to haunt him. It was still for the most part an unsolved problem. He believed the solution lay in sanitary engineering. John was determined to learn more about this subject.
     He learned that Thurmond Vocational College, a technical school that had night classes that young workers could attend to learn new skills, was offering a course on sanitary engineering. The classes were to be held in the evenings. John enrolled in the course.
     He found the classes were to upgrade a plumber's knowledge of the trade. The practical side of sanitary engineering was emphasized. The industry had the task of ensuring that every member of the community had his full supply of uncontaminated air, pure water and freedom from polluted drainage systems. The teacher said there were still far too many contaminated cesspools and poorly maintained private drainage systems. They must be eliminated and replaced with a modern sewerage disposal system.
     The technology was available. The products were available. His purpose was to show the students how to use them; how to install the plumbing fixtures, pipes and drains as specified by sanitary engineers.
     The instructor distributed the most recent plumbing catalogues. Among them was Thos. Crapper's. His patented products included such items as 'Seat Action Automatic Flush'. the W.C. cistern, the 'Valveless Water Preventer', the 'Trough Closet', a long bench like device with seats for eight or more to use at the same time. The Trough Closet was just that, a trough, over which was a bench made of a row of eight, ten or twelve toilet seats. The water entered the upper end ran down the trough. It was a continuous run of water. The stream of water carried the droppings away. Practical jokers would crumble up a wad of paper, light it, drop in the upper end and the flow of water would do the rest. Some thought it amusing to watch the victim jump as the burning waste drifted down with water flow to come in contact with the employee's exposed ass. Thomas Crapper redesigned the Trough and that ended the fun of the practical jokers.
     The teacher would say, "On page ten, you will see a drawing of a 'Climax Release Valve'. This is it." He would hold it up for all to see. Then the class would gather around him, and he would show them how it was to be installed. Its threads were worn by the many times it was attached and detached. It served as a learning tool. The instructor knew what was up-to date and available, more so than most plumbing contractors, including Marsh and Company. He would use a glass beaker, funnel with a shut of cock and 'S' shaped glass rod to demonstrate how a common sink or drain trap worked under pressure.
     During the course, the instructor went page by page through the Thos. Crapper catalogue and a few others. He said he used the Crapper catalogue because he had invented more plumbing fixtures, attachments, valves. cocks and drain accessories than anyone else.
     He warned his students of the tendency to use larger drain-pipes than necessary. This belief that bigger is better is not usually true in building drains, he said. Larger drains cost more and required more cleaning. This added to the maintenance cost. He talked about the rate of fall for drainage pipes of different sizes. He distributed a chart used by the city of Brooklyn. He said he, himself, thought the rate of fall should be ten to fifteen percent greater than those listed. The length of the drain and the hardness of the soil often were reflected in the fall levels selected. He stressed the good ventilation of drains and showed them examples of ventilating pipe, elbows, and tees available.
     A technical school instructor recommended that John enroll in Dr. Anderson's night school class on Sanitary Engineering at the University of Melbourne. John did. Here he hoped to learn the theory and technology he felt he sorely lacked. While convalescing, he had read and reread the somewhat dated books on sanitary engineering; the three books his co-worker, Sandy, had borrowed for him to read.
     John was a problem student. He knew more about the subject than the other students did. He frequently asked questions that would take the professor off on a tangent. Complexities, although small, were ones that most, if not all his fellow students could not comprehend. John would nod to acknowledge that he understood an answer. Dr. Anderson realized the other students had not understood. Most of John's questions were to update and add to his knowledge of a subject.
     Dr. Anderson emphasized that sanitary engineering dealt with the promotion of public health, comfort and control of the environment. His course dealt specifically with water supply, sewage, stream and water pollution, liquid waste and industrial waste. His lectures covered such subjects as engineering, a smattering of biology, bacteriology, chemistry, hydraulics and disease control methods. He assured his class that his lectures would not make them sanitary engineers but would make them aware of what they must learn to become one.
     His lectures fell into these categories: public water supply, sewage, streams and water abatement. sewerage treatment, industrial waste treatment, refuse collection and disposal. During his talks he kept reminding his listeners that politics and public pressure could be a friend or foe of a municipal sanitary engineer.
     He gave several frightening examples of stream pollution. Two that John remembered years later were: "In 1858, when Queen Victoria and her husband took a pleasure trip in a launch on the Thames River, the foul, rancid and putrid smell made them leave the vessel in great haste and hide indoors behind closed windows. [Little wonder that Queen Victoria's husband, the Prince Consort, died of typhoid in 1861]
     That summer the heat wave exposed rotten garbage and human excrement dumped into the river. It lay along both banks. A river should never be used for such purpose. Members of Parliament adjourned early in 1858 to avoid the horrid, intolerable smell that seeped in to fill all the rooms of the House of Parliament at Westminster with terrible, nauseating odours.
     The one tale that John enjoyed best was another story involving Queen Victoria. On her visit to Trinity, one of the colleges in the City of Cambridge, she and Dr. Whewell stood on a bridge overlooking the Cam River. Queen Victoria asked, "What are all those pieces of white paper [toilet tissue] floating down the river?" The Master of Trinity College said, "Madam, those are notices that swimming in the river is forbidden."

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