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From Sundays Star:
Toronto's most hated man?
Jun. 4, 2006. 07:14 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
STAFF REPORTER
The framed photo of infamous American labour leader Jimmy Hoffa that hangs above Bob Kinnear's desk says it all.
Or does it?
Kinnear, the fiery TTC union president many blame for this week's wildcat transit strike, says Hoffa has been a lifelong hero. But not because the storied Teamsters union boss had legal problems or shadowy connections to the mob.
Kinnear admires Hoffa for turning the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful labour unions in the world and for securing pensions and decent wages for his members.
And there was Hoffa's absolute fearlessness in the face of corporate and political power.
Perhaps Kinnear, with his slicked back hair and wraparound sunglasses, was drawing on Hoffa's legendary defiance of authority last week.
"I don't care if I ruffle feathers at city hall," Kinnear said about the political outrage to his unapologetic support for the illegal strike. "I'm not interested in being popular with politicians. They don't elect me and they don't pay me. My job is to represent my members to the best of my ability."
Kinnear, who grew up in the rough and tumble part of Cabbagetown, admits as a kid he was initially attracted to Hoffa's notoriety. Kinnear was just 5 in 1975 when Hoffa vanished without a trace after setting out to meet organized crime figures.
"Part of it might be because I got involved with it so young and reading up on it so young. He was so glamorized. Maybe that was what attracted me. I'm not sure to be honest. But I always admired the guy," Kinnear says.
To Kinnear, who went around with a bunch of kids who had frequent brushes with the law, Hoffa's status as a street fighter was definitely a draw. But Hoffa's ability to hold his own at the bargaining table really impressed the young Kinnear.
"He could debate and negotiate anybody across the table," he says. "Whether it was a fight in the streets or a fight at the table, he always took the fight on."
Young Kinnear may have seen a bit of Hoffa in himself. In Cabbagetown, Kinnear was the tough kid with brains — the guy everyone turned to when the stakes were high.
"I guess I had a quick tongue when I was young. I was able to talk my way out of a lot of situations," he says "When me and my friends got ourselves into situations, it was always me that seemed to be the spokesperson or always me who had to take the lead — whether the guy was 6'6" — it didn't matter, it was always me."
So even when a councillor calls for his resignation, the mayor threatens him with disciplinary action, and the TTC says it will sue for up to $3 million in lost revenue, Kinnear remains unfazed.
"It's not going to discourage me from representing my members. If I have to be vocal about it, I will."
The former subway operator with no union executive experience burst onto the public stage three years ago as one of the youngest to ever lead a major Canadian union. He took his membership to the brink of a strike a year ago in what city hall insiders say was a reckless and unfocused round of bargaining.
And last week, the 36-year-old union leader presided over a job action that brought Toronto to its knees on the hottest May 29th on record.
He has been called immature and unpredictable.
"I've never seen anything like it and I've been in this business for 34 years," TTC chief general manager Rick Ducharme, frustrated by what he said were months of fruitless negotiation with the union, said last week of Kinnear's methods.
But lifelong friends say Kinnear has a strong moral compass and a fierce determination to help others.
"I know people are mad," says Diane Cyr, who grew up in Regent Park, just south of the housing co-op where Kinnear lived. "But if you look beyond the politics, you can see that he's just standing up for the drivers and maintenance workers. It's what he's done all his life."
Toronto City Hall is abuzz with conspiracy theories about the illegal job action. Still unexplained is Kinnear's automated phone call to members on the eve of the strike that many believe set events in motion.
Some say Kinnear has his sights set on joining the international transit union leadership and needs to show he can handle a labour crisis. Others believe the wildcat is part of a strategic show of strength Kinnear has orchestrated to fend off a likely challenge for his presidency, up for renewal in December.
And a few wonder if he's trying to emerge from the shadows of his father Larry's illustrious 12-year career as the union's executive vice-president from 1982 to 1994. Since then, Larry has been Canadian international vice-president of the Amalgamated Transit Union representing Eastern Canada.
"This guy is tough to get a bead on," says Councillor Brian Ashton (Ward 36 Scarborough-Southwest), one of nine councillors who sit in the Toronto Transit Commission board.
"In all my years of labour relations, I've never had the sand shift so much under my feet," he adds. Outside city hall, radio talk show lines crackled all week with callers decrying the illegal work stoppage and demanding fines, firings or worse for workers. On the streets, rider reaction ranged from spluttering rage to withering gratitude that at least service was restored.
At the heart of the matter for the union are sore points such as shift changes, health premiums, seniority rights and driver safety. The union claims that management's refusal to resolve these issues boiled over Sunday night into the wildcat action. From the cat-and-mouse chase last Monday to serve Kinnear with Labour Board papers ordering union members back to work, to the full-page newspaper ad on Wednesday claiming gross mistreatment of a driver injured on the job last summer, it was a week of high drama.
Either he incited the illegal job action or he can't control his members. Nobody's saying. Any way you slice it, Kinnear's on the hot seat.
Friends who grew up with Kinnear paint a picture of a boy who climbed out of a childhood of poverty and neglect to become leader of one of the city's most important unions. They scoff at the suggestion he's an egomaniacal union leader who thinks about nothing but power.
The Bob Kinnear they know is a selfless man with a huge heart and a passion for helping others.
And the hair? The new slick-backed style is an attempt to hide the fact that his hair is thinning — not a stab at looking more the part of "union boss."
They say Kinnear and his sister Michelle grew up in a home where there was too much drinking and not enough love. His father, Larry, left when Kinnear was a boy. Kinnear never got along with his stepfather and didn't see much of his dad.
"We all came from similar backgrounds, some even worse," says Cyr, now office manager for an Inuit art gallery in Yorkville. "We supported each other."
Kinnear was known among friends who hung out on Prospect and Parliament Sts. as The Brain. He represented his Grade 6 class on students' council at Winchester Public School. He didn't get involved in student politics at the now-closed Castle Frank High School, but his grades were good and he was the guy everyone went to for help with homework, Cyr recalls.
"He had this ability to absorb vast amounts of information quickly and retain it," she says. "He's really smart."
But university wasn't on the radar for Kinnear or most of his friends. Cyr says Kinnear probably looked up to the father he never really knew and sought a job at the TTC to follow in his footsteps. Starting as a janitor at 18, he worked his way up to bus driver and fare collector before becoming a subway operator.
A turning point came when he fathered a daughter at 19, says friend Stephanie Clarke. Kinnear took the responsibility of fatherhood very seriously, Clarke says. He always paid support and has played an active role in his daughter's life. Despite his hectic work schedule, Kinnear still sees 17-year-old Ashley every weekend. He never married, has "no time" for a girlfriend and lives alone in an apartment near Danforth Ave.
Both Cyr and Clarke say Kinnear has always been known among his friends as the kind of guy who can't walk by a homeless person without digging into his pocket for $10 or $20 to press into an outstretched hand. When Cyr's son needed surgery a few years back, Kinnear switched his shift so he could drive them to the hospital. When Clarke's husband was shot to death, Kinnear was a shoulder to cry on and helped out financially.
"In our group, if anyone ever needs any money, Bob is always there for them," Clarke says.
His friends say the TTC is the family Kinnear never had and he is fiercely loyal to his union "brothers and sisters." They say the job is just an extension of the helping, compassionate person they grew up with.
"We're all just so proud of him," says Clarke, a clothing sorter for Value Village. "When you consider where he came from — to be head of the union, on TV — It's like Hollywood."
Kinnear says he has always lived something of a dual life. He was fascinated by politics and the union movement from an early age and despite his mother's disinterest in current events, he rarely missed the 6 o'clock news. In a Grade 6 essay on careers, Kinnear wrote that he wanted to become president of the TTC Union.
"I followed the TTC closely, probably to battle the absence (of my father)," he says.
But on the street, Kinnear says he was forced to play the "tough kid" role in order to survive.
At the TTC, Kinnear never served as a union steward or on the executive. But he says he has always been active in union affairs and even used vacation time to take union courses. He represented the union as a delegate to international conventions before seeking the presidency and says he unofficially played the role of assisting members in every location he worked.
Kinnear won't deny his father's reputation and name helped him win the presidency in 2003, beating two-term incumbent Vince Casuti, who had the full support of the union executive. But he says the image among some union members that he was spoon-fed the presidency by his father couldn't be further from the truth.
"There's no question the name recognition helped me. But I did this on my own."
Kinnear flatly rejects city hall rumours that last Monday's job action was spurred by his aspirations to join the international union or by fears about being unseated in December's union elections.
"The first year I got into office I was grandstanding because I had to prove myself. The second year I was doing it because it was a contract year. Now my third year of office, it's because it is an election year," he says. "I'd like to ask (TTC chief general manager) Rick Ducharme when is it that I can represent my members without doing it for political reasons."
Kinnear admits there have been some "problems" on his executive board but to suggest his presidency is at risk is an exaggeration.
"I have no doubt TTC management and some commissioners would love to see me replaced," he says. As an aside, he adds that for a man who doesn't cry easily, the contempt from city hall for his members this week brought him close to tears.
"My aim is to serve my members to the best of my ability and hopefully I will be fortunate enough to get to be re-elected to represent these great men and women again for three years," he says.
Does he regret the turmoil he caused last week?
"Absolutely. Absolutely. Personally I do. I've got a daughter who relies on the transit system every day...My friends, my family, they all rely on the TTC."
Last week's seemingly insincere behaviour can be blamed on his frustration at city hall's refusal to share responsibility.
"The public was obviously inconvenienced on Monday. But we all knew it was potentially a possibility. But no matter who I reached out to, no one wanted to talk about it. And they want to blame me now.
"I was the one who was raising the flag three weeks prior," he said, adding he warned Ducharme, TTC chair Howard Moscoe and Mayor David Miller that members were frustrated and ready to walk.
But is he sorry it happened?
"We are definitely sorry as an organization and personally we are sorry that it had to come to the head that it did," he says.
"We do not want to inconvenience the public. But unfortunately, the last resort is to relinquish your services and unfortunately, with the industry we're in, it has a major, major impact with the public."
**Another LAME profile from the star! What a sad attempt to personalize this guy. No one in the city save a few ATU monkeys care about his youth and how he thinks it shaped him.
He certainly does not come across as an overly smart union leader - this piece does nothing to help look intelligent only referencing a grade 6 project!
I love the quote saying he will give $10 or $20 to any outstretched hand.
Right on. I call 100% BS.
Toronto's most hated man?
Jun. 4, 2006. 07:14 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
STAFF REPORTER
The framed photo of infamous American labour leader Jimmy Hoffa that hangs above Bob Kinnear's desk says it all.
Or does it?
Kinnear, the fiery TTC union president many blame for this week's wildcat transit strike, says Hoffa has been a lifelong hero. But not because the storied Teamsters union boss had legal problems or shadowy connections to the mob.
Kinnear admires Hoffa for turning the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful labour unions in the world and for securing pensions and decent wages for his members.
And there was Hoffa's absolute fearlessness in the face of corporate and political power.
Perhaps Kinnear, with his slicked back hair and wraparound sunglasses, was drawing on Hoffa's legendary defiance of authority last week.
"I don't care if I ruffle feathers at city hall," Kinnear said about the political outrage to his unapologetic support for the illegal strike. "I'm not interested in being popular with politicians. They don't elect me and they don't pay me. My job is to represent my members to the best of my ability."
Kinnear, who grew up in the rough and tumble part of Cabbagetown, admits as a kid he was initially attracted to Hoffa's notoriety. Kinnear was just 5 in 1975 when Hoffa vanished without a trace after setting out to meet organized crime figures.
"Part of it might be because I got involved with it so young and reading up on it so young. He was so glamorized. Maybe that was what attracted me. I'm not sure to be honest. But I always admired the guy," Kinnear says.
To Kinnear, who went around with a bunch of kids who had frequent brushes with the law, Hoffa's status as a street fighter was definitely a draw. But Hoffa's ability to hold his own at the bargaining table really impressed the young Kinnear.
"He could debate and negotiate anybody across the table," he says. "Whether it was a fight in the streets or a fight at the table, he always took the fight on."
Young Kinnear may have seen a bit of Hoffa in himself. In Cabbagetown, Kinnear was the tough kid with brains — the guy everyone turned to when the stakes were high.
"I guess I had a quick tongue when I was young. I was able to talk my way out of a lot of situations," he says "When me and my friends got ourselves into situations, it was always me that seemed to be the spokesperson or always me who had to take the lead — whether the guy was 6'6" — it didn't matter, it was always me."
So even when a councillor calls for his resignation, the mayor threatens him with disciplinary action, and the TTC says it will sue for up to $3 million in lost revenue, Kinnear remains unfazed.
"It's not going to discourage me from representing my members. If I have to be vocal about it, I will."
The former subway operator with no union executive experience burst onto the public stage three years ago as one of the youngest to ever lead a major Canadian union. He took his membership to the brink of a strike a year ago in what city hall insiders say was a reckless and unfocused round of bargaining.
And last week, the 36-year-old union leader presided over a job action that brought Toronto to its knees on the hottest May 29th on record.
He has been called immature and unpredictable.
"I've never seen anything like it and I've been in this business for 34 years," TTC chief general manager Rick Ducharme, frustrated by what he said were months of fruitless negotiation with the union, said last week of Kinnear's methods.
But lifelong friends say Kinnear has a strong moral compass and a fierce determination to help others.
"I know people are mad," says Diane Cyr, who grew up in Regent Park, just south of the housing co-op where Kinnear lived. "But if you look beyond the politics, you can see that he's just standing up for the drivers and maintenance workers. It's what he's done all his life."
Toronto City Hall is abuzz with conspiracy theories about the illegal job action. Still unexplained is Kinnear's automated phone call to members on the eve of the strike that many believe set events in motion.
Some say Kinnear has his sights set on joining the international transit union leadership and needs to show he can handle a labour crisis. Others believe the wildcat is part of a strategic show of strength Kinnear has orchestrated to fend off a likely challenge for his presidency, up for renewal in December.
And a few wonder if he's trying to emerge from the shadows of his father Larry's illustrious 12-year career as the union's executive vice-president from 1982 to 1994. Since then, Larry has been Canadian international vice-president of the Amalgamated Transit Union representing Eastern Canada.
"This guy is tough to get a bead on," says Councillor Brian Ashton (Ward 36 Scarborough-Southwest), one of nine councillors who sit in the Toronto Transit Commission board.
"In all my years of labour relations, I've never had the sand shift so much under my feet," he adds. Outside city hall, radio talk show lines crackled all week with callers decrying the illegal work stoppage and demanding fines, firings or worse for workers. On the streets, rider reaction ranged from spluttering rage to withering gratitude that at least service was restored.
At the heart of the matter for the union are sore points such as shift changes, health premiums, seniority rights and driver safety. The union claims that management's refusal to resolve these issues boiled over Sunday night into the wildcat action. From the cat-and-mouse chase last Monday to serve Kinnear with Labour Board papers ordering union members back to work, to the full-page newspaper ad on Wednesday claiming gross mistreatment of a driver injured on the job last summer, it was a week of high drama.
Either he incited the illegal job action or he can't control his members. Nobody's saying. Any way you slice it, Kinnear's on the hot seat.
Friends who grew up with Kinnear paint a picture of a boy who climbed out of a childhood of poverty and neglect to become leader of one of the city's most important unions. They scoff at the suggestion he's an egomaniacal union leader who thinks about nothing but power.
The Bob Kinnear they know is a selfless man with a huge heart and a passion for helping others.
And the hair? The new slick-backed style is an attempt to hide the fact that his hair is thinning — not a stab at looking more the part of "union boss."
They say Kinnear and his sister Michelle grew up in a home where there was too much drinking and not enough love. His father, Larry, left when Kinnear was a boy. Kinnear never got along with his stepfather and didn't see much of his dad.
"We all came from similar backgrounds, some even worse," says Cyr, now office manager for an Inuit art gallery in Yorkville. "We supported each other."
Kinnear was known among friends who hung out on Prospect and Parliament Sts. as The Brain. He represented his Grade 6 class on students' council at Winchester Public School. He didn't get involved in student politics at the now-closed Castle Frank High School, but his grades were good and he was the guy everyone went to for help with homework, Cyr recalls.
"He had this ability to absorb vast amounts of information quickly and retain it," she says. "He's really smart."
But university wasn't on the radar for Kinnear or most of his friends. Cyr says Kinnear probably looked up to the father he never really knew and sought a job at the TTC to follow in his footsteps. Starting as a janitor at 18, he worked his way up to bus driver and fare collector before becoming a subway operator.
A turning point came when he fathered a daughter at 19, says friend Stephanie Clarke. Kinnear took the responsibility of fatherhood very seriously, Clarke says. He always paid support and has played an active role in his daughter's life. Despite his hectic work schedule, Kinnear still sees 17-year-old Ashley every weekend. He never married, has "no time" for a girlfriend and lives alone in an apartment near Danforth Ave.
Both Cyr and Clarke say Kinnear has always been known among his friends as the kind of guy who can't walk by a homeless person without digging into his pocket for $10 or $20 to press into an outstretched hand. When Cyr's son needed surgery a few years back, Kinnear switched his shift so he could drive them to the hospital. When Clarke's husband was shot to death, Kinnear was a shoulder to cry on and helped out financially.
"In our group, if anyone ever needs any money, Bob is always there for them," Clarke says.
His friends say the TTC is the family Kinnear never had and he is fiercely loyal to his union "brothers and sisters." They say the job is just an extension of the helping, compassionate person they grew up with.
"We're all just so proud of him," says Clarke, a clothing sorter for Value Village. "When you consider where he came from — to be head of the union, on TV — It's like Hollywood."
Kinnear says he has always lived something of a dual life. He was fascinated by politics and the union movement from an early age and despite his mother's disinterest in current events, he rarely missed the 6 o'clock news. In a Grade 6 essay on careers, Kinnear wrote that he wanted to become president of the TTC Union.
"I followed the TTC closely, probably to battle the absence (of my father)," he says.
But on the street, Kinnear says he was forced to play the "tough kid" role in order to survive.
At the TTC, Kinnear never served as a union steward or on the executive. But he says he has always been active in union affairs and even used vacation time to take union courses. He represented the union as a delegate to international conventions before seeking the presidency and says he unofficially played the role of assisting members in every location he worked.
Kinnear won't deny his father's reputation and name helped him win the presidency in 2003, beating two-term incumbent Vince Casuti, who had the full support of the union executive. But he says the image among some union members that he was spoon-fed the presidency by his father couldn't be further from the truth.
"There's no question the name recognition helped me. But I did this on my own."
Kinnear flatly rejects city hall rumours that last Monday's job action was spurred by his aspirations to join the international union or by fears about being unseated in December's union elections.
"The first year I got into office I was grandstanding because I had to prove myself. The second year I was doing it because it was a contract year. Now my third year of office, it's because it is an election year," he says. "I'd like to ask (TTC chief general manager) Rick Ducharme when is it that I can represent my members without doing it for political reasons."
Kinnear admits there have been some "problems" on his executive board but to suggest his presidency is at risk is an exaggeration.
"I have no doubt TTC management and some commissioners would love to see me replaced," he says. As an aside, he adds that for a man who doesn't cry easily, the contempt from city hall for his members this week brought him close to tears.
"My aim is to serve my members to the best of my ability and hopefully I will be fortunate enough to get to be re-elected to represent these great men and women again for three years," he says.
Does he regret the turmoil he caused last week?
"Absolutely. Absolutely. Personally I do. I've got a daughter who relies on the transit system every day...My friends, my family, they all rely on the TTC."
Last week's seemingly insincere behaviour can be blamed on his frustration at city hall's refusal to share responsibility.
"The public was obviously inconvenienced on Monday. But we all knew it was potentially a possibility. But no matter who I reached out to, no one wanted to talk about it. And they want to blame me now.
"I was the one who was raising the flag three weeks prior," he said, adding he warned Ducharme, TTC chair Howard Moscoe and Mayor David Miller that members were frustrated and ready to walk.
But is he sorry it happened?
"We are definitely sorry as an organization and personally we are sorry that it had to come to the head that it did," he says.
"We do not want to inconvenience the public. But unfortunately, the last resort is to relinquish your services and unfortunately, with the industry we're in, it has a major, major impact with the public."
**Another LAME profile from the star! What a sad attempt to personalize this guy. No one in the city save a few ATU monkeys care about his youth and how he thinks it shaped him.
He certainly does not come across as an overly smart union leader - this piece does nothing to help look intelligent only referencing a grade 6 project!
I love the quote saying he will give $10 or $20 to any outstretched hand.
Right on. I call 100% BS.
