WORCESTER—Union contract negotiations can be difficult, but not usually when Tom Maloney was involved. The business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 96 in Worcester had a way of making sure everyone got along.
“Not that we were in a cold war,” Local 96 administrator James Arthur said, “but sometimes people don’t see the light and I think he just brought everyone back together, really moving in a very nice direction because of that.”
In short, Maloney was an electrician who helped people see the light.
“Talking with contractors,” Arthur said, “they found him so pleasurable and easy to work with because he understood the common goal – that everybody needs to win or nobody wins at all.”
Electricians will be among the many who will miss Maloney, who died at age 56 unexpectedly in his sleep at his home in Woodstock, CT, on Thursday, Feb. 15. His brother John said he found him in his bed.
Maloney lived most of his life in Worcester before he moved to Woodstock a few years ago.
“The family and the person who needed a helping hand,” John Maloney said, “will greatly miss him.”
“I think people are still in shock,” Arthur said. “I think he’s going to be missed tremendously.”
Maloney is survived by his brother and his brother’s wife, Teresa, and their two daughters, Katherine Maloney of West Hartford, Conn., and Margaret Maloney of Worcester.
James Arthur knew Maloney for nearly 25 years and served for the past year as the union’s business representative and training director. After Maloney’s death, Arthur replaced him as business manager.
Local 96’s five staffers oversee a membership of 500, including retirees.
“He was very in favor of openness and friendliness,” Arthur said of Maloney. “His motto was Local 96 here in Worcester is open for business to anyone, and anyone who comes through the door be friendly to. We tried to get away from whatever image the public has of us. We’re just like everybody else.”
Electrician Mike Chionchio knew Maloney for most of his life and he said Maloney was no pushover.
“Tommy was fearless and he was loyal to the end to his friends and family,” Chionchio said. “He was a loyal union labor representative. He was a great guy, but God help you if you got into a push-and-shove match with him because you were always going to come up on the short end of the stick with him.”
Chionchio said Maloney left his supervisor job at Eversource utility company to take a pay cut to become the business manager at Local 96.
“No. 1, that’s an honorable thing to do,” Chionchio said. “No. 2, you sacrifice a job with a good retirement and everything else to lead this group of electricians who were like a ship without a rudder. Tommy stepped in to be that rudder.
“Tommy turned the IBEW Local 96 around 180 degrees,” Chionchio said. “If Tommy had not stepped in, we would have been merged with Boston Union 103 and we would have just been forgotten about. Tommy brought back all the contractors.”
After graduating from Worcester Vocational Technical High School in 1985, Maloney joined the IBEW Local 96 as an apprentice under Ralph Giangrande. He went on to become the union’s recording secretary and a member of the executive and examining boards before becoming business manager in 2017. He was also a member of the National Electrical Contractors Association and recording secretary for the Worcester-Fitchburg Building Trades Council.
Just last month, he signed a contract between Local 96 and Citizens Energy, which conducts a home heating assistance program.
Chionchio had his own electrician business for 15 years before recently accepting an offer to join Citizens Energy.
John Maloney, a retired Worcester firefighter, said his brother’s legacy was “forwarding the union cause. He was all about organized labor.”
Maloney came from a union family. His father, John, belonged to the postal union and his uncle, Tom Sheehan, was president of the International Steelworkers Union.
“Tommy was exactly who he said he was,” Arthur said. “I found him to be very genuine. He always remained the same. He was the same guy I knew as a member and a friend and when he became business manager. I never saw him change.”
John Maloney, 57, was born less than a year before his brother so they were known as Irish twins. His best memories of his brother included many when they were young, including the times they fished together at Coes Pond and Indian Lake and off the bridge at Hampton Beach.
Maloney was an avid Boston Red Sox fan so he enjoyed serving as the union representative on the Worcester Ballpark Commission, a group of volunteers who oversaw activities at Polar Park, home of the WooSox.
“He thoroughly loved it,” John Maloney said, “because of his ties with my uncle and him being a lifelong Red Sox fan. It just all came together for him.”
Local 96 electricians performed a lot of work for Ostrow Electric Company during the construction of Polar Park.
In his teens and 20s, Maloney was an accomplished amateur boxer who fought as a heavyweight, competing first out of the Ionic Ave. Boys Club under the coaching of Carlos Garcia and then at the Exchange Street Gym.
“We all knew that Tom was a very good boxer,” Arthur said. “So in the back of your mind you’re like, ‘Be careful.’”
Many years ago, fellow boxer Freddie Potenti wrote an essay that included a line about how he broke his hand punching Maloney’s head.
“He had a good left hook, a very good left hook,” John Maloney said. “He liked the physicality of it and the challenge.”
Chionchio boxed as a light heavyweight, but he used to spar with Maloney.
“He would step on my foot so when I went to pivot, I would fall down,” Chionchio said.
Chionchio remembers the time that Maloney bit an opponent on the chest during a fight, prompting people to start calling him the “Man Eater.”
“For being a kid from Main South, a boxer and tough guy,” Chionchio said, “he always spoke correctly, he spoke above his weight class. Tommy carried himself and talked like he had a very good education. He was just a trade school kid and took night classes on his own and learned his own stuff.”
Maloney enjoyed riding his Harley, including to work, and restoring antique motorcycles. His brother said he mingled easily with the community of riders who ranged from Hells Angels to executives of corporations.
Maloney also enjoyed taking his niece, Margaret, to horse races in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and he liked taking her and her sister, Katherine, to the theater.
“He was like a champion of the people,” John Maloney said. “He was just a good guy to everybody he met. It didn’t matter who you were.”
Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com
