Then later on I ran for chief steward and I held that position for five years. Chief steward is more or less over all the stewards, a little bit higher position. If there's a problem in the plant, instead of having to go to your vice-president or your president, you'd go to your chief steward. If I'm a steward and I had a problem that I couldn't get settled at the office and I knew I was right, then I would get the chief steward. He or she had a little bit more of a voice. The chief steward ran things if the president and vice-president was gone. And there is more involvement in the higher parts of it - labour management meetings, grievance meetings, and negotiations. After that I was vice-president for about five years and then I ran for president in 1990 and got it, and in 1992 the plant closed down.

It wasn't just a nine to five job. I used to start in the morning at seven o'clock and I'd work till five in the afternoon. I might be just getting home and sitting down to my supper and there's a phone call. There's something going on at the plant that the stewards can't handle. I've been having to go off three and four o'clock in the morning - someone got fired or something like that. I'd say that's the major thing we used to have in the plant.

When somebody got fired, most people would be outside the gate. If the workers thought it wasn't just cause or wasn't a good reason, they thought they'd help by walking out, but most times that didn't work. Then you'd have to get them back, because it would be illegal. When I ran for president I think I only had the position for about a week when we had a major walk-off. A fellow got fired. Everybody in the plant was out in the parking lot and they weren't supposed to be out. I'm gonna tell you, I was really, really nervous because the last thing people wanted to hear from the president was, "We want you to go back to work." When I went out at least I had the promise that we were going to have a meeting the next day in St. John's. Anyway, I went out and talked to them and I couldn't believe my eyes, people went back to work.