Members of the International Association of Iron Workers have erected some of the nation's most recognized structures over the past 105 years, including San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge, the United Nations headquarters in New York, and the St Louis arch. Now, a reformer from Toledo has set his sights on shoring up what many regard as the union's shaky foundation.

Joe Blaze II, longtime head of Toledo Local 55, is challenging the appointed incumbent for the presidency of the 125,000-member union at a convention in Las Vegas next month. Supporters say Mr. Blaze's underdog candidacy has a strong chance of success, with informal polls showing he has the backing of 40 percent of union representatives in what is only the second contested election for the presidency in union history.

“If members are ever going to change this union, now is the time,” said Mr. Blaze, a 49-year-old Toledo native of Hungarian descent who grew up in the city's heavily Polish Lagrinka section of the north end.

His candidacy, announced nearly a year ago, got a boost from a corruption investigation that already claimed four top officials of the union.

The second in command, General Secretary James Cole, along with a union lobbyist and two officials of the organizing department, have pleaded guilty in recent months to using union money to entertain family and friends. The money was spent on meals, personal vacations, and country-club memberships, according to Kenneth Wainstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The union officials are cooperating in an ongoing investigation of union corruption.

A federal probe of the Iron Workers began more than three years ago as an outgrowth of an investigation into police corruption in the District of Columbia, site of union headquarters.

Prosecutors were looking into whether then-President Jake West used union funds to do favors for a friend, Larry Soulsby, the former Washington police chief.

No charges have been filed against Mr. Soulsby or Mr. West. The union president, who had been expected to seek re-election, resigned in February.

General Treasurer Joseph J. Hunt, who was appointed by union officials to fill the vacancy, is running against the Toledo union leader.

He did not respond to a telephone message left at union headquarters.

Mr. Blaze vows that, if elected, he will root out corruption and will increase democracy in the union in which top officials historically won their jobs through appointment and then ran without opposition.

“Union legal fees from the investigation are piling up into the millions,” he said in an interview at Local 55's near-south-side union hall.

“Unions have been given a bad name by leaders like those in the Iron Workers right now.”

Mr. Blaze, who holds a bachelor of arts degree in labor studies from Antioch University's George Meany Labor Studies Institute, is business manager/financial secretary-treasurer of Local 55.

A former iron worker and a full-time official of the 900-member Toledo local since 1984, he has a reputation for being a progressive union leader who refunds unused dues money each year and has worked hard to bring women into the largely male union. His father, also named Joe Blaze, is a retired officer of the Toledo local.

“Joe is running on his personal honesty and integrity,” said fellow Toledo labor leader Al Segur, executive secretary of the Northwest Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council.

“He's a guy that actually knows what it's like to work in the field, run a union day to day, and deliver service to members. A lot of union international officers have forgotten that's what they're there for.”

Construction union officials with whom Mr. Segur has spoken say Mr. Blaze's chances of winning have increased in recent weeks.

“That would be quite an accomplishment,” Mr. Segur added. “Not too many union general presidents come from Toledo.”

Mr. Blaze has used vacation time to travel around the country promoting his candidacy. He heads a reform slate that includes union officials from Portland, Ore., and Wheeling, W.Va.

A 1969 graduate of Toledo's Central Catholic High School. Mr. Blaze is a married father of three grown children, including two sons who are iron workers and a daughter who is a model in New York.

The union president will be selected not in a direct election but by a vote of elected delegates at the union convention, Aug. 13 to 17. Campaigning has been complicated by the union leadership's refusal to provide him with a list of delegates. They have, however, agreed to forward literature to the delegates.

Marick Masters, a business professor and union expert on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, said the Toledo union leader faces an uphill struggle.

“It's very difficult for challengers to successfully wage campaigns against incumbents,” he said. “Incumbents tend to have a variety of resources at their disposal in unions, just like in politics in general.

“That's not to say it's impossible. It is possible particularly if there has been a pattern of corruption.”

First Published July 19, 2001, 12:58 p.m.