John Jarvis

This stub is a work-in-progress by the ScienceCorruption.com journalists's group. We are indexing the millions of documents stored at the San Francisco Uni's Legacy Tobacco Archive [1] With some entries you'll need to go to this site and type into the Search panel a (multi-digit) Bates number. You can search on names for other documents also.     Send any corrections or additions to editor@sciencecorruption.com

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

John Jarvis worked for 6 years as Legislative Director for the United Mine Workers before setting up The Jarvis Company as a corporate lobby shop with contacts in Democrat and labor/union circles. He became an important arm of the Tobacco Institute's lobbying during the 1980s

Jarvis became a key member of the Tobacco Institute's Labor Management Committee which paid various executives in unions and labor organisations to support the cigarette industry in a range of various ways.

With guidance from the Labor Management Committee the tobacco industry was able to garner support from the industry-related unions who benefited from the harvesting, processing, sale and aftermath of cigarettes, including the makers and maintenance of air-conditioning, sheet-metal workers, and ducting installers. To a degree, these unions were protecting the economic interests of their members by helping to block moves which might result in lower smoking rates, so an interest in these changes is to be expected (if not excused)

However the Tobacco Institute was also able to bribe executives in the overall union/workers political hierarchies like the AFL-CIO and other labor organisations such as the A. Philip Randolph Institute through generous annual 'donations' and through specific payments for work done in contacting Congressmen, writing letters to the editor, op-eds, etc.

Peter Sparber head of the Public Relations division of TI (later an independent contractor to TI) made a speech in April 1988 explaining the TI's close relationship with the union movement. This was a report on the Tobacco Institute's "Issues Management" activities:

Today, the Institute works closely, not only with the BC&T (Bakery Confectionary & Tobacco workers union), but with a host of AFL-CIO union on critical legislative initiatives. The relationship has developed to the point where the Institute is one of the only outside groups welcome at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meetings. I can go to these meetings and get business accomplished for the industry and the Institute.

To build this coalition and design a strategy for the (Labor Management) Committee, we turned to cadre of outside labor consultants. We recognized that the Institute lacked the internal labor expertise necessary to move forward on this project.
(The cadre was contracted through Ogilvy & Mather)

John Jarvis and The Jarvis Company are listed here as key members of the LMC. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ejn04b00/pdf