Why union, TTC reached a flashpoint over vaccines
Internal tensions and fraught relations with agency set stage for standoff, union insiders say
It was supposed to be a friendly event to give TTC riders a chance to meet the head of Toronto’s transit agency. But the scene at Main station on Nov. 22 quickly turned ugly.
As riders on their evening commute trickled in and out of the station, an angry crowd of about 40 protesters circled chief executive Rick Leary.
“F---ing criminal!” someone shouted at Leary, according to video of the event sent to the Star. As chants of “Shame!” rang through the station, Leary abandoned the meet-and-greet, and was followed out of the building by protesters shouting homophobic insults.
The spark that had ignited the protesters’ outrage was the TTC’s introduction one day earlier of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which had left hundreds of workers who chose not to get their shots suspended without pay and facing termination.
The TTC’s largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, had spent the past three months fighting the mandate, provoking criticism from those who argued vaccination was the best way to keep passengers and workers safe, and to draw customers back to a system whose ridership had evaporated during the pandemic.
Footage of the Main incident showed Local 113 president Carlos Santos among the crowd and doing nothing to calm the hecklers, and when the video was posted online, some took it as confirmation the union had emboldened hostile antivaccination attitudes among members at the expense of public health.
“Does ATU 113 want to help make transit riders feel confident riding again, or are they once again engaging in self-destructive activity?” one rider asked on Twitter.
I think it’s just a lot of frustration (among members that) a lot of the safety measures we asked for took some time to get. FRANK MALTA ASSISTANT BUSINESS AGENT, ATU LOCAL 113
Throughout the entire pandemic, the safety of our employees and customers has been the top priority. SHABNUM DURRANI SPOKESPERSON FOR TTC
Yet the union has consistently said it’s not opposed to vaccines, and statistics show the vast majority of Local 113 workers have received two doses. So how did the union come to be seen as the vanguard of anti-vaccine opposition in Toronto’s public service?
According to union insiders, the answer has a lot to do with the relationship between the union and transit agency, which they say had reached a breaking point before the vaccine mandate. But they also say the scenes at Main station can’t be fully understood without accounting for the political fortunes of the Local 113 president.
On Nov. 22, Santos looked to have scored a victory against TTC management as his members chased off its CEO. But nine days later he was out of a job, having suffered a crushing defeat in the union election.
The TTC announced on Aug. 19 it planned to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for its 16,000 employees. The move came hours after Mayor John Tory said the city would impose a similar policy and asked municipal agencies to do the same, as more than 95 per cent of hospitalizations and deaths were among the unvaccinated.
Other municipal unions expressed concern about the policies and some, like the Toronto Police Association, spoke against them. But when the TTC released details of its mandate on Sept. 7, Local 113 took the extraordinary step of urging members not to confirm their vaccine status to management, which the transit agency reported led to “abysmally low” disclosure rates.
Weeks later, Local 113 reversed that directive, but like other unions it lodged a grievance against the TTC’s policy. The transit union also filed an application with the Ontario Labour Relations Board in October alleging the mandate violated provincial labour law, then in November it unsuccessfully sought a court injunction against it.
At times the union aligned itself with figures who had expressed controversial or even offensive views about COVID-19. In late September, Santos appeared to briefly sign on to support an anti-mandate bill from Roman Baber, an MPP whom Premier Doug Ford had kicked out of the Progressive Conservative caucus after he claimed “the lockdown is deadlier than COVID.”
On Sept. 7, the local’s Twitter account reposted a message from a Western University professor who had previously compared COVID-19 protocols to the Holocaust. The message Local 113 retweeted falsely claimed “not a single life was saved” by public health measures. The union told the Star that its post, later deleted, “was in no way an endorsement of any anti-vaccine views.”
John Di Nino, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Canada, Local 113’s parent organization, said the union’s combative approach has to be seen in a context in which, by this summer, the TTC’s relationship with the local “was at an alltime low.”
Since the pandemic’s start, despite decimated ridership, front-line transit employees had been showing up to do a difficult job that put them at risk of the virus. But “every time we asked for some reasonable precautions and we asked the employer to use reasonable measures to protect its workers, it fell on deaf ears,” said Di Nino, who as national president wasn’t directly responsible for Local 113’s response to the mandate.
As an example, he noted that in early 2020 the TTC initially wouldn’t let workers wear masks on the job, pointing to public health advice at the time that indicated they weren’t needed. The TTC later reversed the ban after sustained pressure from the union.
When cases rose again in the spring of 2021, Local 113 said the TTC resisted its calls to bring back protections for bus drivers it had introduced in the first wave, like all-door boarding and blocking off seats behind the operators’ cab. Some members were also upset the TTC decided not to strictly enforce its rule, introduced in July 2020, that all riders wear masks.
Di Nino said Local 113 always had a duty to protect the livelihoods of workers who didn’t get their shots. But the perception was that management hadn’t looked out for employees’ safety earlier in the pandemic and was now threatening to fire workers who had been on the front lines.
“I think it’s just a lot of frustration” among members that “a lot of the safety measures we asked for took some time to get,” said Frank Malta, assistant business agent for Local 113.
The TTC denies it didn’t do enough to protect workers. “Throughout the entire pandemic, the safety of our employees and customers has been the top priority,” said spokesperson Shabnum Durrani.
“We have worked closely with Toronto Public Health on developing our policies for the past two years. We have been working closely with all our union partners, including ATU Local 113, all along.”
When the TTC introduced details of its vaccine policy, Santos was facing a tough battle to keep his job in the Dec. 1 Local 113 election.
Santos, a 45-year-old bus and streetcar operator, was first elected president in 2018. Union sources said he won by promising more accountability and transparency with union finances, which appealed to members who felt the local had become an old boys’ club under former president Bob Kinnear.
But according to Rocco Signorile, a retired Local 113 executive who’s still involved in union politics, after Santos was elected, “he did a literal 180 on everything he said he was going to do.”
Signorile and two Local 113 sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal union matters, gave similar accounts of how Santos lost members’ support.
They said he promised to rein in spending on sending union leaders to labour conferences and related trips, which many rank and file viewed as wasteful. But the trips continued.
The Santos administration’s decision to buy a Mercedes van to take to charity drives and other community events also raised eyebrows. The van, rumoured to cost $70,000, became “a symbol of stupidity and excess,” Signorile said.
Then there was Santos’s appearance at Tory’s executive committee on Oct. 23, 2019. The committee was meeting to discuss the Ontario government’s controversial plan to take ownership of new TTC subway lines, a high-profile issue that threatened Local 113’s future, and the room at city hall was packed with media.
According to council protocol, after the speakers’ remarks, they take questions from the committee. But after Santos delivered a speech opposing the upload, he declared he wouldn’t take questions and walked away, passing up an opportunity to hammer home his point in front of the cameras.
The incident, which has become “world famous” among Local 113 members, according to one union source, made Santos look ill equipped to stand up for the union on a big stage. The common sentiment was “Does this guy take the position seriously? Who does that?” the source said.
By the time the TTC introduced the vaccine mandate, Santos “could have come up with a cure for COVID and still not gotten re-elected,” said the source, who said they believed Santos tapped into the hardline anti-vaccination sentiment of a minority of workers in the hopes of energizing membership to vote for him.
“He had already lost the membership well before (COVID-19),” a second union source said, adding that they didn’t think Santos personally held anti-vaccine views, but saw opposition to the mandate as a way to “look tough ahead of the election.”
The source said the directive for members to not disclose their vaccine status wasn’t formally approved by the Local 113 executive.
If Santos hoped fighting the vaccine mandate would reverse his slumping popularity, it didn’t work. On election night, he placed a distant third, with just nine per cent of the vote.
In a statement to the Star, Santos said he was “proud to have led ATU Local 113 for three years.” He said Local 113 supports COVID-19 vaccinations, and he is vaccinated himself.
“This fight about the TTC’s heavyhanded policy was never about vaccinations, but rather about defending rights and saving jobs while still protecting public health,” he said. He didn’t directly answer whether he had used the mandate issue as a political tool.
In response to questions about union spending, Santos said union expenses are approved by the Local 113 executive board, not by the president, and the union “has a duty, as prescribed by our bylaws,” to attend a certain number of conferences each year. He said buying the Mercedes van was “a more costeffective alternative to renting.” He didn’t confirm the $70,000 price.
According to the TTC, 1,183 of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and four have died.
It’s not clear what effect Local 113’s opposition to the mandate has had on vaccination rates among its members.
But as of Dec. 10, the TTC reported 93 per cent of Local 113 members were fully vaccinated, and more than 800 were suspended for not complying with the policy. By comparison, the city of Toronto estimates the vaccination rate among its unionized employees is about 98 per cent.
The TTC blames Local 113 for the lower vaccine uptake and claims riders have suffered the consequences, because mass suspensions of unvaccinated workers forced temporary service cuts. Local 113 counters the TTC has made a choice to scale back service hours instead of accommodating employees who don’t get their shots.
Marvin Alfred, who won the Local 113 election and will take office in January, doesn’t plan to drop the union’s grievance against the mandate, but said in an interview he plans to take a less “hostile” approach.
“I think communication and negotiation is key,” he said.