He's been a major figure in the union movement for more than four decades, but he has dismissed his influence as simply providing support and advice to people around him.

Jean Lavallée was an electrician who became the president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, and oversaw the development of its real-estate investment arm SOLIM.

He is now being pressed by the Charbonneau Commission to answer why the QFL created such a fund in the first place, and to explain why entrepreneurs like Tony Accurso had so much apparent control over money raised from workers.

On the stand Monday, Lavallée was asked his opinion of testimony presented by another former union executive, Ken Pereira, who said that the union used its control over job placement to send a message to unruly workers and contractors.

Lavallée said "I've never heard of such a thing," but did admit that small-scale strikes and work slowdowns did happen.

"It's true there were some problems, but very few problems," said Lavallée. "At the beginning there were problems on [Quebec's] North Shore, but I worked to ease problems and to stop work slowdowns."

Lavallée is being portrayed as a man out of touch with his workers, while systematically placing himself in conflict of interest situations, behavior he said he felt was acceptable.

Good friends with Tony Accurso

Later in the day Lavallée bristled when attorneys suggested it was unseemly for the head of the province's largest union to be sailing with a major construction company owner.

Lavallée admitted that Accurso invited him five or six times to vacation on his yacht, each trip lasting about a week.

"It wasn't sinful back in the day to travel like that with an old friend," said Lavallée, before commissioner Lachance pointed out the yacht is less than ten years old.

Lavallée denied that the yachting vacations, valued at $70,000 each week, were Accurso's way of lobbying for the FTQ investment fund to invest in a plant near Sept-Iles.

"I've known Tony Accurso for 32 years," said Lavallée, insisting his holidays never compromised his negotiating position.

Union dues questioned

 Lavallée also had to explain how he used his members’ union dues while he was also the head of the electricians' union. 

It had no strike fund, but had a large office staff and a huge investment fund of its own. 

The commission wanted to know why he didn’t reduce the dues if the fund was so large.

“Because you never know the future holds,” replied Lavallée.  

When asked how about his members’ average salary, the former union boss’s estimate was far off the mark, guessing $28 000 per year, when in fact it was closer to $70 000 per year.  

The commission also confronted Lavallée on claims there was a system of favouritism when assigning jobs to workers, hiring the well-liked ones first.

“That's not true, these are just rumours,” he said.

The government, however, found the claim credible enough to remove the role of job placement in construction from the unions.