The former head of the Toronto Transit Commission’s largest union was not acting alone when he took steps to disaffiliate ATU Local 113 from its parent organization, an investigative report from the Canadian Labour Congress has found.
The Maryland-based Amalgamated Transit Union had accused Bob Kinnear of “single-handedly and secretly” attempting to deliver his members to Unifor but in a report released this week a mediator with the CLC said that that there is “abundant evidence” that there were some members of the local’s executive board that were supportive of the move, which began with a Feb. 1 letter to the CLC .
The mediator also said that it appears as though the ATU will take “retributions against workers” for their support of Kinnear, something he said he would refer to the CLC for further consideration, as current bylaws do not explicitly forbid such actions.
Kinnear resigned two weeks ago amid an extended struggle for control of the union.
“I have argued, without success, that the healing that is necessary in Local 113 is not well served with ‘cleansing’ from office,” mediator Barry Thorsteinson wrote. “It is my hope that future CLC disputes procedures will confirm that such punitive actions are indeed from a bygone era.”
In February, the ATU placed the local under a trusteeship and removed Kinnear from his position.
Kinnear was subsequently reinstated by a court injunction but many members of the executive board remained loyal to the parent union and subsequently voted in favour of a motion of no-confidence in Kinnear’s leadership and that of two other board members who had supported him.
In his report, Thorsteinson said he has twice asked the international president of the ATU to agree to a ‘commitment of no retribution’ against Kinnear’s supporters but has been rebuffed on both occasions.
He said that members should not be penalized for supporting a disaffiliation process that is entrenched by Canadian labour laws.
“I fail to understand how an affiliate can engage in retaliatory measures for members having accessed CLC constitutional rights,” he said. “Why create such rights without protection?”
Unifor wrongly offered financial and public support
During the struggle for control of ATU Local 113, the president of Unifor, Jerry Dias, repeatedly supported Kinnear in public, at one point appearing alongside the ousted leader at a press conference.
The CLC report found that Unifor had in fact provided “financial, moral and public support” to Kinnear, which is a violation of the organization’s constitution.
It said that it should be left to the CLC to determine the “appropriate response” to the violation.
Meanwhile, in a press release ATU Local 113 called the support, which Unifor itself admitted to providing, the“most blatant intrusion in Canada’s labour history.”
“We never doubted for a second that Unifor was plotting and paying for Bob Kinnear’s scheme to rip Local 113 away from the hands of our members,” ATU Local 113 Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Morton said. “If Unifor can target Toronto’s transit workers with a raid, they could do it to any labour union. Unifor must suffer consequences for violating the CLC constitution, which is crucial for maintaining solidarity within Canada’s labour movement.”
