By ERNIE GOTTA
Teamster President Sean O’Brien caused a wave of divergent opinions in the labor movement following his speech at the Republican National Convention. Rank-and-file members made comments on Tik-tok from “Did he not know where he was?” to “I love watching the Teamsters prove how much this crowd actually likes or cares about the American worker.”
But what was revealed following O’Brien’s speech was what we knew all along—his allyship with oppressed peoples is not very deep. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri published an article the day after O’Brien’s remarks that said, “The C-suite (Corporate) long ago sold out the United States, shuttering factories in the homeland and gutting American jobs, while using the profits to push diversity, equity, and inclusion and the religion of the trans flag.” To which Sean O’Brien commented on X, “@HawleyMO is 100% on point.”
First, Hawley’s statement is incredibly misleading and harmful. Second, O’Brien’s response lends credibility to the many reports of O’Brien’s racism. Just this year, the Teamsters settled a $2.9 million lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. The Guardian reported in January, “Rather than maintaining or increasing diversity at Teamsters, IBT [International Brotherhood of Teamsters] fired more than a dozen people of color and turned the Organizing Department from a diverse department into a majority white department.”
On the one hand, the exchange between Hawley and O’Brien has a logic that is wrapped in the union leader’s desire to find ways to collaborate with the capitalist class. On the other hand, Hawley is trying to paint himself as a conservative politician who is also pro-labor.
Jim Kabell, a retired Missouri Teamster leader, had this to say about Hawley in the Kansas City Star: “In my five decades as a Teamster, former trustee of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and president of the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Teamsters, I thought I’d seen every kind of shamelessness there is from a politician in an election year. Then I saw Sen. Josh Hawley campaign at a picket line with Teamsters—just months after he said 200,000 of their Teamster brothers and sisters who provide vital government services are “hostage” takers.”
Kabell continued, “Union workers first got to know Hawley as the vocal right-to-work supporter who single-handedly cut overtime pay protections for 237,000 workers and said a $12 minimum wage was “out of the mainstream.”
In order to win over white workers, Hawley in his article reframes the problems of the working class and redirects anger over the shuttering of factories, outsourcing and loss of good jobs to a scapegoat—oppressed communities. And O’Brien, instead of correcting Hawley, cosigns this statement.
How should a labor leader who is responsible to the rank-and-file members respond? O’Brien could have easily said that the corporations don’t give a damn about diversity, equity, or trans rights. He could have said that it is unions and working people that have fought tooth and nail against oppression in all of its forms to just be recognized as human beings.
Why didn’t O’Brien explain that the corporations are using these issues to “rainbow wash” the historically anti-worker positions these companies have held and continue to hold? After all, the Teamsters union has a national LGBTQ+ Caucus that recently marched in the Los Angeles Pride. The caucus website clearly has national issues listed as, equity, dignity, respect, and inclusion. Yet not even 16 days had gone by since the end of Pride Month before the members of the union got an anti-LGBTQ comment from their top leader. What about the Teamsters Black caucus and women’s caucus? Don’t they deserve better from their union president?
On July 19, Chris Fuentes, national president of the Teamsters LGBTQ+ Caucus, posted a letter from Sean O’Brien that stated, “My sharing of the article was meant to highlight the call for bi-partisan labor reform and was in no way intended to support negative criticism of social issues.” Unfortunately, the apology shows little understanding or care for the very real issues that are impacting workers who are Queer, Black, immigrant, or women. O’Brien’s response and support of Hawley deepens the push of the Teamsters toward labor conservatism.
The chants during Trump’s speech at the RNC of “mass deportations,” “Drill baby, drill,” firing Shawn Fain from the UAW, and the noticeable applause toward the anti-trans trope of not allowing “men” to play women’s sports help explain the reason why so many are upset that O’Brien spoke at the RNC and gave trade-union cover for some vile politics. Labor journalist and author Kim Kelly suggested that O’Brien’s speech could be potentially angling for a “Secretary of Labor posting in a Trump administration.“
Those who defend O’Brien’s actions think he is being diplomatic and negotiating his way to making gains for the Teamsters through a “bipartisan” approach. The reality for the organized working class is that both the Republicans and the Democrats have acted throughout history against the interests of the working class. The Democrats and Republicans are the parties that represent the wealthy elite, the bosses. The Republican and Democratic national conventions are no place for unions.
The only thing the bosses understand is power. Without a labor party based in a fighting and democratic union movement, the only power that working people have is in mobilizing in the streets and going out on strike.
The fact that O’Brien could take the time to respond in support of Hawley’s article on social media but not say a word in support of United Auto Worker (UAW) Union President Shawn Fain after Trump’s call to have him fired is troubling. This is especially concerning as it was revealed that federal monitors have tried to influence the political direction of the UAW by demanding that the union back down from its position demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite his support for President Biden, Shawn Fain and the UAW put forward a challenge to unions everywhere in calling for unions to line up together in fixing the dates of negotiations on their contracts and to organize a general strike on May 1, 2028. This call could set an important example, whatever Fain’s intentions might be, for rank-and-file workers to build a fighting labor movement.
A Labor Notes article quoted Fain’s remarks on Facebook Live: “If we’re going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it’s important that we not only strike, but that we strike together. So what if a bunch of unions say they’re all going to walk out on May 1, 2028, unless their employers offer record contracts to make up for years of runaway inequality? What if they align some of their demands—like demands for an end to forced overtime, and for the restoration of the eight-hour day? Or, hell, for workers to share in the gains of productivity with a 32-hour week at 40 hours’ pay. Or for a return to real pensions. What if newly unionized workers fighting for first contracts join them? Not only could it push the employers, it would also put some big pressure on politicians, in a presidential election year, to back solutions that help working people.”
If the Teamsters were to put the weight of their 1.3 million members behind this call, it could dramatically change the landscape of the labor movement. The Teamsters would also be able to really challenge the two-tier system at UPS that has abused and exploited the labor of part time workers for decades.
