The head of the union representing transit workers in Toronto has resigned following a public battle with the union’s U.S.-based parent association.
The Executive Board of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 said a statement on Friday that the resignation of Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) union president Bob Kinnear is effective immediately.
Kinnear, along with others from the union’s executive board, were ousted by the ATU on Feb. 3 after Kinnear was accused of trying to disaffiliate Local 113 from the parent organization without the knowledge of the membership.
The ATU placed the local under a temporary trusteeship. Ten of 17 members of the executive board who had been turfed, not including Kinnear, were quickly reinstated.
Both sides went to court and Kinnear was reinstated as president on Feb. 21. That night, a no-confidence motion in Kinnear’s leadership passed at an emergency meeting of members of the union’s executive board.
Kinnear has not issued a statement about his departure from the organization.
In the days after his initial removal from his post, he told reporters the conflict between the two parties came down to the ATU respecting the members’ right to choose their affiliation.
“Why is the ATU so concerned and afraid of a democratic and free vote?” Kinnear asked on Feb. 7. “If that happens and the membership so chooses, I won’t dispute it. In fact, I will respect it, encourage the members as I always have and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the members.”
An ATU executive accused Kinnear of “plotting in secret” to get the membership to join Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union.
In Friday’s statement, Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Morton of ATU Local 113 called the matter a “distraction” that’s now behind the union.
“We’re now focused on what matters most — representing Toronto’s hard-working transit workers,” he said. “More united than ever, we’re moving forward to fight the TTC’s plans for alcohol and drug testing and to prepare for next year’s important collective bargaining.”
The ATU said a Canadian Labour Congress investigation into the relationship between the local and the ATU, which had been requested in the days before Kinnear was removed from the organization’s leadership, will no longer go ahead.
The organization represents nearly 11,000 employees across the city’s subway, light rail and bus system.
In a statement issued Friday, the TTC wished Kinnear well and assured customers that “internal union matters have no effect on service.”
— With files from Briana Carnegie, AM640 and David Shum, Global News