Preville on Politics

“Junior” Giambrone refuses to swallow union bait

Posted on April 11, 2008 by Philip Preville

Yesterday, transit union president Bob Kinnear decided to run an idea up the flagpole and see if TTC chair and political whippersnapper Adam Giambrone was fool enough to salute it: he asked the thirtysomething Giambrone to take over from TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster as the city’s lead negotiator in contract talks. “If Gary Webster is still in control,” Kinnear said, “we are very concerned we will not be able to reach a deal.” He even tried to ply Giambrone with flattery, saying what a good listener he is, but Junior didn’t flinch: “Our negotiating team has the confidence of the TTC commission” was his reply. Still, Giambrone better hold fast and watch his back.

Remember what happened in the wildcat strike: then-TTC chair Howard Moscoe did an end-run around Chief General Manager Rick Ducharme, who then performed the you-can’t-quit-you’re-fired routine for everyone’s amusement. A few months later, Mayor Miller removed Moscoe from the TTC, leaving Kinnear as the winner of that little game of Survivor. Webster was the logical choice as Ducharme’s replacement, but should he quit, he will prove irreplaceable. If politicians and union leaders keep tossing TTC General Managers under the bus (pun intended), no one will want the job.

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Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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