Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Teamster Election. O'Brien, TDU, and Rank and File Apathy

 

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 44, retired
GED/HEO

I haven't seen this video above before but it is interesting.  Three years after this video, Sean O'Brien was elected  Teamster president in November 2021 as part of a coalition opposing the James Hoffa backed Steve Vairma.  Teamsters For a Democratic Union (TDU) refers to this new leadership as "militant" and praised the result as a "landslide"  Labor Notes, an organization with very similar politics to TDU, was also ecstatic.

Now TDU is not a militant organization by any means but certainly the assault on it by O'Brien in the video above has to be condemned. It shows how concerned sections of the labor bureaucracy are that O'Brien launches this attack, even encourages Trumplike threats. TDU is simply not that much of a threat as far as I can see, or have ever been.

Below is a short video I made in April when I read that TDU was announcing the new leadership of the Teamsters as "militant".  After this election I asked as many Teamsters rank and file members I came across, many of them UPS drivers, what they thought of the new leadership. Overwhelmingly, the response was similar, no confidence at all that it would make any difference. A significant number were not even aware the leadership had changed.  Now the members can be blamed to a certain extent for not taking the time and effort to keep track of things, but years of betrayals, concessions, bureaucratic manoeuvring have led to this situation. And it's not just the Teamsters.

The turn out was extremely low and can hardly be called a landslide. As this excellent article in Tempest points out:

However wide a margin of victory, when 86% of the membership don’t turn in a ballot, the leadership’s mandate is left wanting.

Things are changing. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we are witnessing an upsurge in strike activity as the ranks of organized labor are forced to push back. There was no way after spending a couple of years telling workers how important we are and many having to work through the pandemic with great risk to themselves and their families, that this genie could be put back in the bottle. The present economic situation and increased inflationary pressure is also a contributor and this comes after decades of concessionary contracts. In addition, unorganized workers in the low waged industries from Starbucks to Amazon as well as some in the tech industry are confronting their bosses.

As for Labor Notes and TDU, I have had experiences alongside individuals from these organizations in the labor movement and have found a lot wanting there as well. Many of Labor Notes leadership were former union staffers or are among the lower ranks of the hierarchy. There is no doubt LN has the ability to pull together significant numbers of rank and file workers but my experience with them in the labor movement was that they would avoid a confrontation with the present right wing leadership. Many of the articles they publish are often simply reporting events rather than than pointing out the failures of the leadership calling them and their policies to account and offering a different approach. It has changed a bit but not much as far as I can see.

Here is the short video and comments I made in April this year about the O'Brien election and TDU's over the top praise for it. After that are a couple of links to earlier articles about DSA and Labor Notes and differences in approach that I have with these groups.

DSA Labor Notes and the Trade Unions

A Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists

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