The Carpenters' District Council of Ontario has endorsed George Smitherman.
It's the first major endorsement in a campaign where labour support could matter as much as ever, despite new rules banning union donations and a public soured on unions after last summer's 39-day municipal strike.
The Carpenters' District Council, which represents just under 10,000 members in Toronto, decided late last year to back Mr. Smitherman, but waited to make it official until the candidate did a few weeks ago. The union's public affairs director Steven Del Duca, a long-time Liberal, said the carpenters selected Mr. Smitherman because of his "strong record."
"He stressed to us that his number-one priority is job creation," Mr. Del Duca said.
City Hall wisdom has it that most, if not all, of the public sector unions will back Mr. Giambrone when he joins the race before the end of the month.
(A CUPE spokeswoman referred calls to the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, which she said is co-ordinating local labour's efforts in the race. John Cartwright, the president of the labour council, said the council has not made a formal choice yet.) The carpenters are one part of David Miller's support base Mr. Giambrone won't inherit. The union backed Mr. Miller early in 2003 when he was a councillor with single-digit support, and again in 2006.
Last summer's 39-day municipal strike didn't do much for big labour's popularity in this city. You'd think candidates would try to avoid being tarred as union-lovers, even if they're working with unions that had nothing to do with the strike, like the carpenters.
But unions provide boots on the ground, armies of volunteers to do the hard work of getting out the vote, which matters much more in low-turnout municipal races than it does in provincial or federal contests.
This year, union support could matter even more than it has in the past, thanks to a loophole in Toronto's new election rules banning unions from making "contributions" to political candidates.
The new rules don't alter the definition of contributions, which doesn't prohibit unions from paying their staff to work directly for campaigns, so long as those employees do so voluntarily and for their usual pay. That's how CUPE seconded one of its employees to work as David Miller's spokeswoman, on CUPE's dime, in the latter stages of the 2003 race. It's also how unions (and corporations, for that matter) can still make donations to campaigns, regardless of the spirit of the new rules.