Julia Conley
Sep 18, 2024
Cowards.
On the contrary: after being taken for granted for a generation, the Teamsters finally grew a spine.
O’Brien said Wednesday that the union “sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries—and to honor our members’ right to strike—but were unable to secure those pledges.”
When a party can rely on your vote no matter what, you’ve abdicated your political leverage, and it will walk all over you.
Respectfully, this is bullshit.
O’Brien growing a spine would have involved calling out Republicans and their policies at the RNC.
The Republican Party, as it exists under the leadership of Donald J. Trump, is a party of and based around an ideology of bigotry, marginalization, oppression, and hatred.
O’Brien’s speech and this announcement serve as a tacit endorsement of that ideology. The leadership or the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is telling the world and the rank-and-file that the repressive, Neo-fascist ideology of Trumpism is at the very least acceptable to them.
There is zero chance that the right to organize survives a second Trump administration.
All O’Brien did here was throwing out female, PoC, immigrant, refugee, migrant, and LGBTQ+ brothers, sisters, and family under the bus.
It was the opposite of Solidarity.
I haven’t listened to O’Brien’s speech, so for all I know you may be right. We may both be right: these aren’t mutually exclusive. The Teamsters chauvinistically throwing others under the bus is orthogonal to my point about political leverage.
Actually it is completely relevant. Where there are people there is power. Solidarity is the currency of unionionism and the unity Solidarity provides is the only true source of any Union’s strength.
Former Teamster, 19 year UPS service provider (package car driver), currently studying Social Welfare with an emphasis on community organizing in hopes of working as a labor organizer. I don’t dabble, I think about this shit all day
I didn’t say it wasn’t relevant.
The Teamsters has been anti-socialist/anti-communist ever since its forming, or close to it. Almost all US unions have been ever since the Red Scare purges. As long as that remains the case, I don’t have especially high hopes for worker solidarity, not domestically, and internationally even less so.
Orthogonal usually means, unrelated, irrelevant. Sorry if I misunderstood.
I don’t need the links.
Teamsters are still more AFL than CIO that’s for sure.
“I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.”
Not believing in worker Solidarity is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. You have to build it. You have to work. I believe that people are good. That people can be better. I believe that long term unionization is our only hope against corporate dominance.
Have hope. Get out and work for change.
Yeah, I was about to edit my comment in regards to relevant/orthogonal; you were right.
Seriously?
A one word insult to a complex situation?
If, instead of objecting to your comment this way, I had just typed “idiot” instead, would that have been acceptable? No, it wouldn’t, though I was tempted to do it that way just to make the point.
