They talked for seven hours but by the time city councillors finally voted on their latest LRT motion they were, for all practical purposes, back where they were four months ago.

That is to say, council voted to stick with the original Metrolinx plan of selecting a private sector company to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the $1 billion provincially-owned LRT system instead of hiving off the operations to the city's slap-happy HSR department.

Slow clap, please.

The only difference between this and where we sat in August is that council has now decided that the designated private sector builder "shall be required" to hire Amalgamated Transit Union Local 107 — the same workers operating the befuddled HSR — to run the coming light rail system.

But that stipulation is the roaring of a mouse. The fact is, council does not have the authority to force Metrolinx to comply with its direction. It is at best a request and a symbolic show of support for Local 107.

You might ask, why didn't councillors make this gesture back in August? Better yet, why didn't they make it in April when they finally crossed the Rubicon and voted 10-5 to forge ahead with the controversial LRT project by approving the updated environmental assessment report?

There is no good answer other than to say for some councillors, waffling, wavering and meddling with LRT is as much second nature as spinning, posturing, and manipulating.

Matthew Green was the main engineer for this iteration. Back in August it was Green who, with strong lobbying support from ATU Local 107, convinced the majority of council to ask Metrolinx to allow HSR to operate and maintain the LRT system.

The result was a four month delay which saw Metrolinx park its procurement process for finding a builder, upsetting the original timelines. That means the contract will not be awarded to a preferred bidder until after next year's municipal election, which can't help but cast a shadow of uncertainty over the project.

City council, Metrolinx, and its provincial masters all share the blame for the delay. But it was Green's motion that muddied the wheels.

In the end, of course, Metrolinx said no to maintenance but left the operating decision in council's hands. But by that time HSR was in full crisis mode — riddled and raddled by MIA buses, through-the-ceiling absenteeism, escalating overtime, and plunging ridership.

Faced with this new reality, Green pragmatically dropped the HSR-as-operator idea like a scalding spud but remained joined to the hip with ATU. Thus the feel-good but nugatory motion demanding that Local 107 apply its special touch to the LRT system.

A fed-up Lloyd Ferguson was the only councillor who didn't climb aboard Green's latest brain wave. "If we keep dithering on this darn thing, we're going to blow it," Ferguson said.

Actually, Ferguson dropped that line in support of a more generic motion from Aidan Johnson which called on Metrolinx to "co-operate in the unionization" of LRT drivers. That motion was defeated 9-6. Green led the charge against it.

For all Green's high-minded social justice principles, nobody should underestimate his willingness to cast aspersions or go for the throat. Referring to the always decorous Johnson as a "so-called progressive" he dismissed his motion as "lightweight and shallow" and branded it "disingenuous" and lacking "union understanding."

Green obviously was fighting to win, even if the victory was devoid of meaningful results.

Green clearly believes the city's collective agreement with Local 107 gives the union the right to represent all city transit workers, which Mayor Fred Eisenberger and others say is legally debatable.

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Still, there is little doubt that Hamilton's LRT drivers will be taken under a union's wing. And there is a very good chance that union will be ATU Local 107. The irony is, that would be the case regardless of Green's time-wasting first or powerless second motion.

- Hamilton council drops HSR run LRT request