The temporary trustee of a union representing more than 10,000 TTC workers is accusing the ousted president of the local of “single-handedly and secretly” attempting to end an affiliation with its parent organization.

The Amalgamated Transit Union placed ATU Local 113 in a trusteeship on Friday morning, effectively removing President Bob Kinnear and 16 other executives from their roles.

The Maryland-based union then placed former ATU Local 113 vice-president and current international vice president Manny Sforza in charge.

Sforza in turn reinstated 10 of 17 dismissed executives.

Meanwhile, Kinnear is seeking a court injunction to regain control of the union, calling the trusteeship as “declaration of war.”

Kinnear has previously told CP24 that he only filed an application with the Canadian Labour Congress to begin a process that would allow members “to make a determination on what union they want to affiliate themselves with.”

Kinnear has also called ATU’s action anti-democratic.

“It is quite clear that Bob Kinnear acted singlehandedly and secretly in this process,” Sforza alleged on Saturday. “I heard from all 11 board members I met with the very same message. That they were disappointed upset and confused with this entire process. At no time were they consulted and at no time did this come up in the boardroom at this very building.”

After seizing control of Local 113 early Friday morning, Sforza said he met with the five senior officers at the union and decided to reinstate three of them. He said he then met with other elected officers and “after getting their position on what has recently transpired” he decided to reinstate them as well.

“I acted very quickly to make sure that day-to-day operations weren’t disrupted and I am very confident today that things are moving very smoothly,” he said. "I want to stress to all of the 10,000 plus members out there watching that it is business as usual."

Kinnear has said issues go back years

Kinnear has previously told CP24 that the issues between Local 113 and its parent union go back for “a number of years.”

He has said that the leadership of the union has “shown disdain towards Canada and the Canadian members” of his union in general and tends to treat “Canada as a colony rather than a country.”

A representative from the Canadian Labour Congress also told CP24 on Friday that the process Kinnear began by making an application to his organization wouldn’t have necessarily led to a split with the Amalgamated Transit Union.

“Our process calls for us to get together with both parties, try to identify the issues and the vast majority of the time we are able to fix those things but in an unexpected move the international union came and put the local under trusteeship,” Chris MacDonald said. “In the couple of years I have been managing this file; certainly we have never seen this kind of retaliatory response.”

The ATU is based in Maryland and represents 200,000 members in Canada and the U.S.

Kinnear unsuccessfully ran against Sforza for his current position with the organization in October.