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Joseph Cavanagh, ex-Suffolk labor commissioner, dies

BY RICK BRAND | rick.brand@newsday.com

January 9, 2009

Joseph Cavanagh, a former Suffolk labor commissioner and a longtime Long Island labor leader whose influence reached to the nation's capitol, died yesterday. He was 87.

Cavanagh died in his East Northport home after a four-year battle with prostate cancer.

"Joe Cavanagh was one of Long Island's premier labor leaders," said former Suffolk County Executive Patrick Halpin, under whom Cavanagh was labor commissioner from 1978 to 1980. "He was a smart, savvy labor leader who had a great Irish sense of humor who employed it to defuse difficult situations."

In his quarter-century career, Cavanagh was business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 25 from 1972 to 1978. During that time he was also a member of the state Economic Development Board and the Huntington Zoning Board of Appeals. He was a key backer of former Rep. Thomas Downey's election to Congress in 1974.

From 1978 to 1987, Cavanagh was the IBEW's international union's legislative and political director in Washington D.C., where the white-thatched labor leader was sometimes mistaken for then House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill.

His family said O'Neill referred to Cavanagh as "the electrician" and joked that electrical workers are "the guys who make the big money," to which Cavanagh responded, "And we're worth every penny."

"He was a tough guy, a tenacious guy, but he was always very fair," said William Lindsay, the Suffolk Legislature's presiding officer, who himself was a former IBEW official and Cavanagh's friend for 35 years.

Born in the Bronx, Cavanagh served in the U.S. Army during World War II in Alaska, the Philippines and Japan. On a weekend furlough, he celebrated his 23rd birthday by marrying Margaret "Peggy" McLoughlin, his wife of 64 years.

After the war, the couple moved to Long Island, settling first in Uniondale and later in East Northport in 1954, where they raised six children. As a journeyman electrician, Cavanagh helped build many Long Island schools, shopping malls and power plants in the 1950s and 60s. He held his first position as business agent for the union in 1964.

Other survivors include sons Brian, of Brussels, Belgium, Michael, of Holbrook, and Terrence, of Catonsville, Md.; daughters, Patricia, of Yaphank, and Colleen Cavanagh Bendernagel, of Norwalk, Conn.; and 15 grandchildren. Another son, Kevin, predeceased his father.

A wake will be held at Nolan's Funeral Home in Northport tomorrow and Sunday, 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. A Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at 9:45 a.m. Monday in St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in East Northport. Burial will follow in Calverton National Cemetery.