Construction and maintenance workers at Toronto schools are told to campaign for school board trustees and some Liberal MPPs by union bosses, who also provide hefty donations to the same politicians.

One carpenter told the Star his job hours were cut off after he refused to go door to door hammering in Liberal Party of Ontario signs in the final days of an election campaign.

The 900-strong Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council is run by Jimmy Hazel, a powerful figure who is on the hot seat over inflated charges for minor jobs at Toronto’s public schools. Installation of a simple electric outlet was billed at almost $3,000; screwing in a pencil sharpener was $143. Hazel, who has tried to use his influence to have a principal who complained about high charges fired, said he has done nothing wrong.

Analysis by the Star shows Hazel and his affiliates have provided at least $118,000 in donations to trustees and Liberal MPPs in a recent four-year period. The donations come from Hazel’s trades council, Hazel and his executives personally, and the affiliated unions (electrical, etc.) that make up the trades council, which has an exclusive contract for work at the Toronto District School Board.

In a response to questions, Hazel said all of his political activities are decisions made by “the Council’s political action committee and decisions to donate and direct donations reflect the best interests of our members.” Hazel did not respond to questions about union members who feel pressured by him to campaign for trustees and MPPs.

The Star has interviewed 10 workers who either campaigned or, in a few cases, refused to campaign.

One, a carpenter who worked for the school board’s trades council last year, learned the hard way that if you don’t help the union campaign for the Ontario Liberal party, you don’t keep your job.

“I ended up on the ‘Do Not Call Back List,’ ” said the man, who asked for anonymity because he has relatives working for the school board and does not want them to get in trouble because he spoke out.

The carpenter said he was asked by Jimmy Hazel’s son, Barry (who runs the carpentry unit), to campaign for the Liberals in the provincial election campaign last fall. The province funds and oversees education in Ontario.

“The Liberals like it when all the people come to give a hand,” the carpenter recalled being told by Hazel’s son.

The carpenter had recently started working for Hazel’s school trades council and was hoping for a permanent position making school repairs. He said that in late September last year, he was asked by the trades council to take a pile of lawn signs in his truck, drive around to specific addresses around the Toronto region and pound them into front lawns.

“At the time I was broke and I couldn’t afford the gas,” said the carpenter, who ultimately refused. He received no more work through the trades council.

Many school board trustees have received donations from Hazel and his affiliates, almost all in the form of $750 cheques. Trustee Sheila Ward has received the most, with $6,000 towards her campaigns in 2010 and 2006. Ward did not respond to requests from the Star for an interview.

At a private meeting Wednesday of school board trustees, where the Star’s investigation was discussed, Ward told those in attendance that “trustees should be muzzled” until the TDSB has a solid communications plan in place to deal with the Star stories.

The only trustee speaking out is Sam Sotiropoulos, elected in a trustee by-election this past February.

Sotiropoulos said that toward the end of the by-election in February, Hazel arranged for a team of TDSB construction and maintenance workers to deliver about 5,000 of his campaign pamphlets door to door in the east end Toronto neighbourhoods where he was running for election.

Sotiropoulos said he also accepted $1,250 in campaign donations from Hazel’s trades council and an affiliate because “elections are expensive” and he needed the money.

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At the TDSB on Friday, director Chris Spence broke his silence to the Star on the matter and said he has passed on to his human resources department a written complaint from Hazel about popular principal Rick Tarasuk, who complained about the high cost of work done by the trades council. Hazel has threatened to use his influence to get the principal fired. Spence said he “absolutely” supports Tarasuk.

“We need people to stand up. We have to ensure that stuff like the overcharging never happens again,” Spence said.

As to Hazel, Spence said nothing specifically during an interview with the Star.

“What am I going to do about Hazel? We are working in a highly unionized environment. We have to work with our unionized partners,” Spence said.

The school board director also said that he first heard of concerns about high charges by the trades council in 2009. He said he has “full confidence in Angelos Bacopoulos,” the chief facilities officer at the TDSB who is trying to fix the problem.

The Star’s ongoing investigation has discovered that time sheets on certain trades jobs at the TDSB are sometimes padded with additional hours to account for salaried workers who do not show up for work or leave early. Only four hours were need to install an electrical outlet but an additional 72 hours were added on to bring the total cost of the job to almost $3,000.

In the last six months, as the TDSB starts to grapple with this issue, eight trades people have been fired for cause after being found at bars, Tim Horton’s or, in one case, distributing flyers for a home-based repairs business using school board equipment.

Hazel, who initially unleashed a profanity-filled tirade on a Star reporter, has hired Ross Parry, a former official in the Liberal government. Hazel said Parry is helping him fine-tune his responses to the media. Parry, who was also the TDSB communications chief in the late 1990s, is helping Hazel put “all the information we collected into prose.”

Related: Popular TDSB principal backed by his association

Data analysis by the Star’s Andrew Bailey

Moira Welsh can be reached at mwelsh@thestar.ca and Kevin Donovan can be reached at (416) 312-3503