BCTGM Saddened to Announce the Passing of Retired Executive Vice President Joseph Thibodeau
Representing manufacturing, production, maintenance and sanitation workers in the baking, confectionery, tobacco and grain milling industries.
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17 Jul BCTGM Saddened to Announce the Passing of Retired Executive Vice President Joseph Thibodeau

Posted at 13:33h in Uncategorized by

The BCTGM International Union is saddened to announce the passing of retired Executive Vice President Joseph Thibodeau. He was 88.

“Joe served this great Union for 48 years before retiring in 2011,” reflects BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton. “He remains one of the most dedicated and giving leaders this organization has ever had.”

Thibodeau’s mother worked the night shift at Cushman’s Bakery in Portland, Maine for many years after his father died at a young age and she had to go to work to provide for her three small sons. When Thibodeau went to work at that same bakery in 1957, it was still non-union. He decided that the Cushman bakery workers needed the protection of a union and in 1963, Thibodeau organized the company, creating Local 166 of the American Bakery and Confectionery Workers (ABC), the AFL-CIO-affiliate bakery union.

He was elected financial secretary and business agent of the local in 1964 and was re-elected the following year. In 1966, he joined the ABC’s International staff as an organizer and in 1967 was made an International Representative. Thibodeau remained on staff after the ABC and B&C reunited in 1969.

In 1972, he was appointed to assist the International representative in charge of auditing the Union’s U.S. locals. When the International representative he was working with was elected International vice president, Thibodeau took over as International representative and auditor.

In February 1994, Thibodeau was elected as International Vice President, Region I.  He was elected to fill the post of International Executive Vice President by the union’s General Executive Board in May 1998. Thibodeau was re-elected as International Executive Vice President at the 2002, 2006 and 2010 International Constitutional Conventions.

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Thibodeau spent his career making sure American workers had the benefit of a fair day’s wage, a healthy workplace and the dignity that comes with a Union contract. He lived out his retirement at his home in Searsmont, Maine with his wife, Helen, until her passing in 2019. 

“Members of this Union can be proud of the lasting impact of Joe’s career on our movement,” Shelton continues. “His legacy is one for the ages.”

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