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sean o brien
What Was Teamsters’ Leadership Thinking?
Being Trump’s buddy is not going to save you from the end of the NLRB and a return to pre-New Deal hostility to all forms of union power.
Sep 22, 2024
Why should anyone give a damn about a labor union’s presidential endorsement? A few reasons. Philosophically, since a good union is a democratic organization, an endorsement allows a politician to claim the legitimate support of a large group of hardworking Americans, that most treasured of groups. Politically, a good union’s endorsement also comes with money for the candidate and a team of union members to make calls and knock on doors, a valuable asset for any campaign. And practically, an endorsement allows a union to shore up support for its own priorities by cozying up to a future elected leader. A union backs a politician, the politician fights for the union’s needs, and the mutually beneficial cycle carries on.
The Teamsters’ non-endorsement of any candidate for U.S. president this week is notable in that it fails on every last one of those metrics.
In fairness, it’s not like every big union in America is some paragon of political virtue. Many or most big unions have a distinctly undemocratic endorsement process, dictated by a small group of leaders in a room rather than by an honest vote of the membership. (This can cause internal uproars, as we saw in 2020 when a number of union locals that supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) railed publicly against their parent unions’ endorsements of U.S. President Joe Biden.) Credit the Teamsters for, at least, releasing some “member polling” data showing that Biden was the candidate supported by most Teamsters this summer, but that Trump had taken a lead after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race. This fig leaf of democratic legitimacy is undermined by the fact that there was no methodology released—one number came from “Town Hall Straw Polls,” and another from an “Electronic Member Poll” that some members griped they hadn’t heard about. The American Prospectreported that the eight rank-and-file Teamster members who attended Kamala Harris’ sit down meeting with the union subsequently said they supported her—though the General Board proceeded to vote 14-3 for no endorsement.
A true union leader, who understands the stakes of this election, must stand up and tell his members: “Hey, if Trump is elected, unions, the working class, women, and your immigrant brothers and sisters are going to be fucked in the following ways.”
In reality, there is every indication that Teamsters president Sean O’Brien just… kinda likes former President Donald Trump. He posed for pictures with Trump in the lobby of Teamsters headquarters, unnecessarily. He had a private meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He had the union donate $45,000 to the Republican National Committee, alongside a donation to the Democrats. And, to cap it off, he gave a prime time speech at the Republican National Convention, mixing pro-worker slogans with ingratiating compliments to a smiling Trump. In doing so, O’Brien made himself into a useful patsy for the false and dangerous attempt by the Republicans to brand themselves as some kind of “working class” party.
O’Brien’s long flirtation with Trump has been marked by notable levels of insincerity. The Teamsters leader will say: I’m open to both sides! We’re having a fair and transparent process! This seems believable, as long as you are a child who has never encountered the American political system in action before. Want to have all candidates come to your union’s HQ to take questions? Great! You do not need to also pose for a publicity photo that they can use in their specious fascist propaganda. Want to maintain open lines of communication with both parties? Sure. That is vastly different from giving a prime time speech at a party’s convention, which is a television event that expressly exists to help get one candidate elected. Acting as if it is possible to speak at the RNC while maintaining independence is a bit like sitting in a car with the windows rolled up as your friends smoke a pound of weed, and claiming that you yourself are drug free. Have you noticed where you are, man?
Want to work with both sides of the aisle on your union’s political priorities? That’s fine. That’s great. Judge politicians not on their party label, but on what they actually do for workers. So here is a summary of the two sides in the upcoming election: One side gave you $36 billion to save your pensions. The other side was against that. One side put the most pro-union general counsel ever at the head of the NLRB. The other side will fire her, and then appoint a bunch of right-wing judges who will rule the NLRB unconstitutional. One side will try to pass the PRO Act to improve America’s labor laws. The other side will oppose the PRO Act and support every last legal and regulatory measure to drain your union of its power and make it harder to organize new workers.
Hmm. Hmm. Choices, choices.
The most plausible theory of the Teamsters’ weird endorsement fiasco is this: The union’s membership has a lot of Trump supporters, plus O’Brien himself is a bit of the macho-esque type of guy who might think Trump is sort of cool, plus—before Biden dropped out of the race—it looked like Trump was going to win. This combination of factors may have been enticing enough to convince O’Brien that he could pave the way for a plausible case to endorse Trump, which would then allow him to accrue power as the lone major union leader that Trump liked when he went back to the White House. O’Brien could then use his uniquely positive relationship with Trump to shield the Teamsters from the bad things the Republicans would do, and make himself labor’s biggest political player at the same time.
Let us count the flaws in this plan. First, Biden dropping out has reset the entire race, making the Democrats the betting favorite once again. But by the time that happened, O’Brien had already pissed off the Democrats so much with his RNC speech and general refusal to endorse that they froze him out of the DNC, instead putting a group of Teamsters members on stage to drive home the point that the Democrats saved their pensions. As soon as the Teamsters International announced they would not endorse anyone this week, Teamsters locals, councils, and caucuses across the nation began quickly announcing their own endorsements of the Harris-Walz ticket. Those endorsements piled up so fast that the Harris campaign was able to blast out their own press release saying that they add up to a total of 1 million Teamsters—the vast majority of the union’s total membership. (The Trump campaign issued its own press release bragging about the non-endorsement, thereby completing the full spectrum of political uselessness.)
Now, Sean O’Brien has pissed off the Democratic Party. He has pissed off the Harris campaign. He has pissed off the rest of the labor movement, and his union allies. He has pissed off the most politically astute segment of his own membership. He looks weak, since his own locals staged a backlash against him. O’Brien’s actions have led to an internal opposition campaign to his reelection. If the Democrats win, he will have to try to rebuild all of these bridges that have been burned. And—the cherry on top—if the Republicans win, organized labor will be fucked anyhow! Being Trump’s buddy is not going to save you from the end of the NLRB and a return to pre-New Deal hostility to all forms of union power.
Smoothly done, sir. Canny maneuvering.
I do not want to end on such a snide note. Let’s imagine that O’Brien did this all in good faith—that he truly felt that his members did not support one side or the other. It would be a positive step for union democracy if every major union had a set internal processes to solicit all members to vote on presidential endorsements every four years, and followed their will. But such a democratic process does not erase the need for leadership. A true union leader, who understands the stakes of this election, must stand up and tell his members: “Hey, if Trump is elected, unions, the working class, women, and your immigrant brothers and sisters are going to be fucked in the following ways.” The Teamsters’ process obviously did not play out like that. Perhaps we can all do better four years from now. Assuming the whole democracy thing still exists.
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'Failure of Leadership': Hoffa Rips O'Brien Over Teamsters' Snub of Harris
"This election is too important for our union not to do its duty," said the former labor leader of his successor.
Sep 20, 2024
The former longtime president of the International Brother of Teamsters, James P. Hoffa, called out his successor Sean O'Brien late Thursday over the powerful union's announcement earlier in the week that it would effectively sit on the sidelines of this year's presidential election by refusing to endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
"This is a critical error and frankly, a failure of leadership by Sean O'Brien," Hoffa said in a statement. "This election is too important for our union not to do its duty. We must take a stand for working Americans. There is only one candidate in this race that has supported working families and unions throughout their career, and that is Vice President Kamala Harris."
Before retiring as leader of the Teamsters in 2022, Hoffa—whose father was the high-profile union leader Jimmy Hoffa who went mysteriously missing in 1975—served as president for over two decades. O'Brien, known for his brash style and was roundly criticized for speaking at this year's Republican National Convention, took over as Teamsters president the same year Hoffa left.
"In the Teamsters' messy handling of a presidential endorsement, O’Brien has appeared weak, short-sighted, and feckless."
On Wednesday, as Common Dreams reported, the Teamsters announced they would withhold an endorsement after polling of its members showed that neither Harris nor Trump had overwhelming support.
Due to Trump's pronounced and consistent hostility to organized labor and fealty to the corporate class, however, most major unions have treated his potential return to the White House as an existential threat to working people and their families.
As veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse wrote this week for Slate:
Trump is an unarguably anti-union candidate. He once said he'd sign a national right-to-work law, he's denounced prominent labor leaders like UAW president Shawn Fain, and he's embraced extremely anti-union business leaders including Elon Musk. Trump recently launched a missile at organized labor's heart by praising the idea of firing striking workers (even though that is illegal under federal law). Three days after O'Brien—in an unusual step for a union leader—spoke at the Republican National Convention to urge the GOP to be nicer to labor, Trump kicked unions in the teeth in his acceptance speech by mocking the United Auto Workers.
Following the announcement by the Teamsters' national leadership, a slew of Teamster locals across the nation, including in key battleground states, rushed their endorsements of Harris out the door.
"Teamsters regional councils—representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees—in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and western Pennsylvania—endorsed Harris" just hours after O'Brien's announcement, reported the Washington Post's labor correspondent Lauren Kaori Gurley.
"Separately," Gurley added, "powerful local Teamsters unions in Philadelphia; New York City; Long Beach, Calif.; and Miami—as well as the union's National Black Caucus and a group of retirees—have endorsed Harris and urged members to vote for her."
In his statement endorsing the Democratic ticket, William Hamilton, president of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters, said: "In the 45 years the PA Conference of Teamsters has been in existence, it is extremely rare to have a pro-labor candidate for president and a pro-labor candidate for vice president running together. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are exactly that team."
What stood out to Greenhouse about the nature of the Teamsters' internal polling, which did show broad support for Trump, comes back around to what Hoffa termed a "failure of leadership" when it comes to O'Brien. He wrote:
That internal survey showing so many Teamsters backing Trump highlighted something else: The union’s leadership must have done a dreadful job informing and educating rank-and-file members about how hugely anti-union Trump is and how aggressively anti-union and anti-worker Trump's first administration was (and appointees were). Also, Teamster leaders evidently also failed to explain to rank-and-file members that Harris has fought for policy after policy strongly backed by the Teamsters and other unions, including the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which is the labor movement’s No. 1 legislative priority and would make it considerably easier for the Teamsters and other unions to organize. Trump opposes the PRO Act. Harris also supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which together will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs for Teamsters and other union members. Harris, unlike Trump, also supports increasing the pathetically low $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage to at least $15.
"When Sean O’Brien ran to be president of the mighty Teamsters union, he promised to be a strong leader," concluded Greenhouse. "But in the Teamsters' messy handling of a presidential endorsement, O'Brien has appeared weak, short-sighted, and feckless."
Crucially, he added, O'Brien "failed to provide strong leadership on one of his most important tests: to get his union’s rank-and-file and board to reject anti-union Trump" and embrace the Harris, the clear pro-worker candidate in the race.
If Trump ultimately wins, Greenhouse said, the snub of Harris may be something O'Brien and the Teamsters "end up regretting because a second Trump administration will probably be even more of a danger to unions (and democracy) than the first one."
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Why Sean O’Brien’s RNC Speech Was a Bad Move
It’s bad enough for a union leader to play into the charade that common ground might be found with the anti-union, employer-funded Republican party. It’s even worse when that party is scapegoating our fellow workers.
Jul 19, 2024
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention on Monday. This was a bad move.
Much of the speech would have been fine if he had delivered it somewhere else. O’Brien railed against corporate greed, singling out Amazon and the private equity vultures that killed Yellow Freight. He called for stronger labor laws. Nobody says that stuff at the Republican convention, so some unionists were pleased to hear righteous themes reach a new audience.
But it almost didn’t matter what he said—the far louder message was where he said it. The convention is not a forum where policy is debated. It’s a coronation pageant.
What’s the message to immigrant Teamsters—and the immigrant workers the Teamsters hope to organize—when their union leader shares a stage with speaker after speaker blaming them for low wages and calling for their families to be torn apart?
There’s a reason why the party gave O’Brien a prime speaking slot on day one, and why Trump, who has zero interest in O’Brien’s pro-worker proposals, beamed through the speech.
Having the Teamster president there—talking tough, laying into the corporate elite—is great for Trump’s fake-populist brand. It lends credibility to his “I’m for the little guy” shtick.
It’s bad enough for a union leader to play into the charade that common ground might be found with the anti-union, employer-funded Republican party. It’s even worse when that party is scapegoating our fellow workers.
What’s the message to immigrant Teamsters—and the immigrant workers the Teamsters hope to organize—when their union leader shares a stage with speaker after speaker blaming them for low wages and calling for their families to be torn apart? Last night the party handed out printed signs to convention delegates that read, “Mass Deportation Now!”
The Jury Is In
In an interview with Fox News before his speech, O’Brien described himself as a lifelong Democrat—but said the Teamsters rank and file is split between the parties, he hoped to speak at both conventions, and he was willing to work with anyone on labor’s issues.
The event was smartly stage-managed, though. A parade of speakers just before O’Brien, billed in giant letters as “Everyday Americans,” told touching stories about working three jobs and not being able to afford gifts for the grandkids. Each one blamed President Joe Biden and said a Trump administration would restore prosperity.
O’Brien’s talking points were so similar—workers are getting the short end of the stick, government is dysfunctional—that he seemed to be agreeing with them, even if he didn’t outright blame Biden or endorse Trump.
In case there’s any doubt: Billionaire Trump, who as an employer has fought unions and stiffed workers, and as a TV personality made “You’re fired” his catchphrase, is not for the little guy. There’s no mystery how labor would fare under his administration. This guy was already president, and we saw the results.
He cut back workplace safety inspectors to their lowest numbers in history. His Labor Board rolled back union rights so far that labor lawyer Robert Schwartz had to delete an entire chapter from The Legal Rights of Union Stewards.
He stacked federal agencies and courts with anti-union zealots who made millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay, made it harder for workers to unionize and easier for bosses to steal wages, and lots more. His Supreme Court made the whole public sector “right to work.” He celebrated a massive tax giveaway to the rich, and never offered a word of support to workers on strike. He tried to slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He opposed any increase in the minimum wage.
He waged war on federal employee unions with attacks on their collective bargaining and due process rights, and shut down the government in a stunt that forced them to go without pay for 35 days. He called climate change a hoax and removed references to it from government documents, while workers suffered the effects of fires, hurricanes, and heatwaves.
Corporate tycoons and alums of his first administration have put together an even more draconian plan for a second term. They want to abolish overtime pay, public sector unions, the federal minimum wage, prevailing wage agreements, the Department of Education, and child labor laws.
Divisive Nonsense
O’Brien singled out Senator JD Vance, the party’s vice presidential nominee, as someone Teamsters can work with, saying, “He’s been right there on all our issues,” though the AFL-CIO says Vance has voted with working people 0% of the time. This year Vance co-sponsored with Senator Marco Rubio a bill to legalize company unions.
O’Brien praised Missouri Senator Josh Hawley too, even though he voted against the Butch Lewis Act that saved 400,000 Teamsters’ pensions, and his AFL-CIO scorecard is barely better than Vance’s at 11%. Hawley put out an op-ed the next morning touting the new “Pro-Labor Conservatism.”
“The C-suite long ago sold out the United States, shuttering factories in the homeland and gutting American jobs,” Hawley wrote, “while using the profits to push diversity, equity, and inclusion and the religion of the trans flag.”'
Hating on workers in other countries makes impossible the only effective strategy against multinational employers: solidarity across borders.
This is divisive nonsense. What CEOs do with their profits is buy mega-yachts and ridiculous watches; transgender workers are not to blame for runaway plants. The problem with corporate DEI is that it’s often hollow, but equality is actually a union value, something we fight for—and bosses usually resist, because things like equal pay for equal work cost money. Yet O’Brien retweeted the op-ed with the comment, “@HawleyMO is 100% on point.”
The most ominous theme in O’Brien’s speech was nationalism. He hammered on the phrase “American workers” and said Amazon’s worst crime is a lack of allegiance to the United States—aligning nicely with right-wing “America First” talking points. Yet his audience was the same party that opposes warehouse safety bills, opposes bills to make it easier to organize a union, and opposes the joint-employer rules that would hold Amazon accountable.
Hating on workers in other countries makes impossible the only effective strategy against multinational employers: solidarity across borders. Are unions going to ally ourselves with right-wing politicians—who, when it comes to foreign policy, back anti-union governments across the world—or are we going to ally with workers in other countries to take on companies like Amazon?
Hawley’s op-ed bashes China and backs “America First” energy policies he claims would help auto workers by repealing electric-vehicle mandates. But the United Auto Workers are taking a different road. The union is not opposing the transition; it’s organizing EV workers. And rather than take an America First line, the UAW has been building an alliance with the growing independent union movement in Mexican auto factories—recognizing that solidarity is in the interests of workers on both sides of the border.
The best way to fight the race to the bottom is to help build a strong independent labor movement in Mexico, China, and everywhere else. The real Republican agenda is to turn working people against each other while our employers laugh all the way to the bank.
Real Problems, Wrong Solution
O’Brien presents his “we can work with either party” approach as powerful and pragmatic, a departure from labor’s longstanding alliance with the Democrats. It looks like he’s trying to solve two problems.
One is to stop the Democratic Party from taking us for granted, so they’ll fight harder for labor’s priorities. Good, but we can only do that by challenging them with real labor candidates, whether in primaries or via the third-party route. Cozying up to Republicans is self-defeating.
The other problem is tough, and not unique to the Teamsters: What to do about Trump’s appeal in our own rank and file? The union deserves credit for initiating a more participatory presidential endorsement process than ever before. Its 300 locals held town hall meetings where members hashed out the issues. The union hasn’t released the results of its straw polls yet, but conversations like those are a good start.
Union leaders, though, should lead. They owe it to their own members—and to every member of the working class who would be harmed by a second Trump administration—to fight to keep anti-worker politicians out of office.
We get why union leaders want “access”; they’ve been shut out of real influence for so long. But it’s delusional to think that Trump might swap out his anti-worker—really, anti-humanity—policies; they are at the core of his being. One more person kissing his ring won’t change that.
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