News

Joyce Williams with the appreciation plaque presented to her by the Mahavihara Buddhist Temple. Bob Kinnear attended and participated in the ceremony on behalf of Local 113 members.

An ATU Local 113 member was honoured today by the Toronto Buddhist community. The Scarborough Mahavihara Buddhist Temple paid tribute to bus operator Joyce Williams at their east end temple for her heroic act last year. The temple is a place of worship and meditation for many new Canadians from the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka.

Williams was driving on Kingston Road past the temple in the early hours of November 27, 2009 when she noticed smoke coming from the wooden building. Williams called 911 and waited for emergency vehicles to arrive. Later, it was discovered that the blaze was deliberately set by someone using gasoline. 

Vice-president of the temple, Ben Seneviratne, called Williams a true hero and said that temple members could never thank her enough for her courage. “Others would have kept driving or would not have even noticed the fire,” he said. “Part of our Buddhist teachings is to be mindful or aware of our surroundings. Joyce Williams demonstrated that awareness on the day that our temple was in danger. We will never forget what she has done.”  read more »

The following statement is issued by Bob Kinnear, president of Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113, Toronto, ON:

“We have learned that an officer of CUPE Local 2 has been arrested and charged with theft from the Toronto Transit Commission.

“The accused is an official of another union and is not affiliated with ATU.

“We deeply regret this situation. We believe in and respect the presumption of innocence principle. ATU 113, however, has never and will never condone theft from an employer or anyone else. It is wrong in and of itself and also reflects poorly on one’s fellow workers.

“The union will be making no further comment on this matter while it is before the courts.”

Hitting the finish line at Sunday’s Ottawa Marathon at 2:57:49, TTC Subway Mechanic Rick Ball, 44, a long-time member of ATU Local 113, set a new world record for single leg amputee Marathoners in Sunday’s Ottawa Marathon. To do this, he had to break his previous world record of 3:04:00, set at the 2009 Boston Marathon.

Rick also holds two other world records in his class, the 10K and the half-marathon. There is no faster one-legged man on the planet. Rick is also a member of Team Canada and will be competing in the 2012 Paralympics in London, England. Read the Ottawa Citizen story.

The president of Toronto’s transit union brushed off a Toronto Sun columnist’s mean-spirited review of a short video produced by ATU Local 113 in the wake of the three recent “Let’s Talk” town hall meetings about TTC service.

Titled Toronto Transit workers meet with their riders, the video can be seen on YouTube and is also accessible through the union’s website, wemovetoronto.ca. It is a compilation of spontaneous comments by several people who attended the three union-sponsored meetings. All volunteered to make their comments in front of the camera and none were prompted in any way. read more »

ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear has issued the following statement concerning the police charge of a TTC bus driver for impaired driving on Wednesday evening.

“This operator was not impaired due to alcohol or illegal drugs. He was apparently affected by doctor-prescribed medication he had been taking for several months. He had not been advised that his medication might cause impairment. There had been no prior indication of impairment from the medication. A medical investigation is underway to determine the nature and specific agents of the impairment.

“No member of the public was affected by this incident. As it involves a medical condition, we ask that the media respect his privacy pending his court appearance.”

The third and final union-sponsored town hall meeting between TTC transit workers and riders was held earlier today at Ryerson University to a packed auditorium in the university’s library.

The event was moderated by radio journalist Barbara Budd, who had just finished a 17-year stint two days earlier as co-host of the popular CBC Radio current events show As It Happens.
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Long-time co-host of CBC Radio’s As It Happens, Barbara Budd, will be the Moderator at the last of three Town Hall meetings conducted by Toronto’s transit union, ATU Local 113.

The meeting will take place at Ryerson University’s Library Lecture Theatre, Sunday, May 2, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. Admission is free on a first-come, first-seated basis. The venue seats just over 300.

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Toronto’s transit union says today’s report by the Toronto Star on TTC customer complaints last year paints a distorted picture of the daily reality of transit service and is dishearteningly unfair to the vast majority of TTC frontline staff.

“Last year there was an average of one complaint for every quarter of a million riders, and of those complaints we only have one side of the story,” says Bob Kinnear, president of the 10,000-member ATU Local 113. “I suggest that this compares very favourably with other large urban transit systems in North America and, in fact, with other public services generally. read more »

In the wake of assault charges against a TTC bus operator arising from a fare dispute, ATU Local 113 is hoping to engage the public this Sunday in a discussion about the growing problem of TTC fare evasion.

“This is an issue that affects not just TTC users and staff but every taxpayer in the city,” says Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 President Bob Kinnear.”
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ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear today released details of the three town-hall-style meetings the union will hold with Toronto Transit Commission riders about improving customer service.

Kinnear had promised the meetings at a media conference on February 9, at a time when TTC workers were under intense public scrutiny. A picture published in late January on the front page of the Toronto Sun of a subway station collector who had dozed off late on a Saturday night touched off a frenzy of picture taking by transit users and a brief rash of negative encounters between TTC staff and a small number of passengers. Kinnear publicly asked that the picture-taking stop but acknowledged “there are things we as workers can do to improve the customer experience.” He said the face-to-face meetings would be arranged to promote open dialogue and mutual respect between TTC workers and riders. Full Media Statement, Press Conference Video  read more »

The Children´s Breakfast Club is a non-profit charitable organization that believes every child is entitled to a nutritious breakfast. About 4,000 meals are served each week in the more than 20 clubs across the Greater Toronto area. The Clubs also activities such as arts and crafts, homework clubs, reading circles, art and photographic exhibitions, theatre and visits from special guests. Local 113 has been a Breakfast Club sponsor for several years. This year we made a commitment to fund a kitchen in the Jane-Finch area for three years. Meals prepared in the ATU kitchen will provide thousands of hot morning meals to children in the area.

http://breakfastclubs.ca/

Bob Kinnear (left) & Neil Hetherington (right), President of Habitat for Humanity Toronto

At their General Membership meeting just after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Local 113 members voted to donate a total of $40,000 to assist the emergency relief effort. The union’s Executive Board decided to distribute those funds to four organizations with outstanding reputations that were already on the ground in Haiti. $10,000 was granted to each organization. By mid-March all of the funds were transferred to the following organizations:

• Care Canada
• Habitat for Humanity Toronto
• Doctors Without Borders
• Canadian Feed the Children

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The following statement is issued by Bob Kinnear, President of Toronto’s transit workers’ union, ATU Local 113, in response to the private member’s bill introduced by MPP David Caplan to declare the TTC an “essential service” read more »

I’m here to make a few comments on the recent avalanche of media-fuelled criticism aimed at TTC front line employees and to announce a union initiative around this issue. read more »

A TTC bus operator has been suspended pending an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a video purportedly recording the operator taking a seven-minute washroom break and buying a coffee at a doughnut shop at 3:00 a.m. last Friday. read more »

While on the job as a Wheel-Trans bus operator in 1994, an alert George Robitaille saved the life of a disabled passenger he had been dispatched to pick up. Brian Mitchell, who had fallen inside his home and was near unconsciousness, would have died had Robitaille not immediately responded to signs that something was wrong in Mitchell’s house. Full story. read more »

The following statement is issued by Bob Kinnear, President of ATU Local 113, which represents Operating and Maintenance employees of the Toronto Transit Commission:

There have been many media enquires about a picture taken at 10:00 p.m. on January 9 of a TTC Collector described as “sleeping” in the booth. read more »