Faux radical misleaders like International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and International Longshoreman Association Harold Daggett have crossed the line from labor independence to tailing Donald Trump and his far right Republican regime. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain also stated that the union would “support aggressive tariff action to protect American manufacturing jobs” as Trump leveraged new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. All three leaders have demonstrated a shocking lack of intestinal fortitude in protecting workers rights. In reality, these misleaders of labor are playing right into the hands of Trump’s attack against workers and turning the class struggle into a nationalist one.
Sean O’Brien’s comments during his interview with Sen. Josh Hawley stating that “people are trying to protect illegal aliens that come here and commit crimes … and steal jobs” gives cover for the bosses to continue pitting workers against each other. Harold Daggett credited Trump with being a “true friend of the working class” after securing a tentative Master Contract in early January. Fain spent so much time at the DNC calling Trump a scab and how he will hurt workers to then support his tariff plan.
Ahora es el tiempo cuando los sindicatos deben trabajar hacia la acción política independiente, no seguir a la cola de los Demócratas o los Republicanos. O'Brien discurso en el RNC en julio de 2024 fue bien acogido, no porque los Republicanos van a ser una fiesta para los trabajadores, sino porque representa una apertura en nuestra capacidad para llegar a los conservadores de los trabajadores con una clase orientada al mensaje.
The lack of an independent labor party in the United States means that inevitably there will be a rightward shift as more people pull away from the Democratic Party. Misleaders like O’Brien, Daggett, and Fein only encourage a rightward drift even more with their sloganeering about “protecting American jobs”. Fain’s comments may not have been xenophobic like O’Brien’s, but a tariff war and attack on immigrants both objectively help the bosses. The working class needs unity now the most, not more division.
I’m a retired Teamster. I worked 29 years as a Teamster truck driver and another 21 years as a full-time Teamster local officer and business agent. Sean O’Brien and his lackeys on the Teamsters GEB were elected by the rank and file members to fight for the interests of workers and they all took an oath to uphold the Teamsters Constitution. Our IBT Constitution includes extensive language in the Preamble regarding international worker solidarity and recognition that we are part of a global economy. Those unfamiliar with this language might read it and ask if O’Brien is upholding our IBT Constitution. I know, as a Teamster for 50 years, a member of seven different locals in NYC and New England, and a long-time and early member of Teamsters For A Democratic Union (TDU) how hard we fought and sacrificed to win the right to vote for IBT officers. O’Brien has brought us back to the days of Teamster GP Frank Fitzsimmons, who was a golf buddy of Richard Nixon’s. O’Brien is much like Trump. The racist and anti-immigrant policies espoused and carried out by Trump and his allies, is the antithesis of what our Union is supposed to be about.
[…] Originally published by Labor Today – https://labortoday.luel.us/en/editorial-misleaders-of-labor-drift-rightward-towards-trump/ […]