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sean o'brien
US Gaza Freedom Flotilla Members Say No Consular Support Given After Abduction by Israeli Forces
Flotilla members said labor organizer Chris Smalls—the last remaining American volunteer still in Israeli custody—was brutally assaulted by his captors.
Jul 30, 2025
The Trump administration failed to provide any consular support to American volunteers kidnapped last week by Israel Defense Forces troops in international waters while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to starving Gazans, freed U.S. detainees said Wednesday.
"No U.S. Embassy officials have visited us or inquired about our condition—despite our repeated appeals," detained professor Frank Romano, a citizen of both the U.S. and France, said before his transfer Wednesday to an unspecified Israeli airport for deportation.
Four other Handala volunteers who were aboard the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) vessel Handala—Vigdis Bjorvand (Norway), Santiago González Vallejo (Spain), Braedon Peluso (United States), and Sergio Toribio Sanchez (Spain)—were also taken to the airport for deportation on Wednesday. Two other Americans aboard the Handala, attorney Huwaida Arraf and 77-year-old Bob Suberi, were released earlier from Israeli custody along with some of the other 19 FFC volunteers who were seized.
One American, Amazon Labor Union (ALU) co-founder Chris Smalls, remains in Israeli detention at Givon Prison, along with Hatem Aouini of Tunisia.
According to the Israeli legal advocacy group Adalah: "They are being held in overcrowded, poorly ventilated cells, without ventilation or cooling, despite the extreme summer heat. They are being denied basic hygiene supplies, and their sleeping areas are infested with bedbugs. With no yard time, they remain confined in closed rooms all day, without fresh air or space to move."
FFC said Smalls—the only Black activist aboard the Handala—"was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals" after his capture, which occurred without resistance.
"They choked him and kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back," the coalition said in a Tuesday Instagram post. "When his lawyer met with him, Christian was surrounded by six members of Israel's special police unit. This level of force was not used against other abducted activists."
Jacob Berger, an American actor aboard the Handala who arrived in New York on Tuesday, said in an Instagram video that Smalls "is in great spirits" and "appreciates all the support and love" he's received. "Remember, we have to keep all eyes on Gaza."
Still, advocates questioned why the mainstream media has given little coverage to Smalls, a public figure who met with former President Joe Biden at the White House after leading the drive to unionize Amazon warehouse workers in New York.
Chris Smalls met w/ Biden at WH, but not ONE major outlet covered the IDF detaining & beating Smalls w/ @freedomflotilla.bsky.social. Smalls was choked & beaten by 7 IDF soldiers. paydayreport.com/amazon-union...
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— Mike Elk (@mikeelk.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 2:48 AM
"Despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the U.S. when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his violent detention by the IDF three days ago," Payday Report senior labor reporter Mike Elk wrote Tuesday.
Elk called out Teamsters president Sean O'Brien, who "has stayed silent on the detention of Smalls, who founded the Amazon Labor Union, which is now an affiliate of the Teamsters."
Pretty hard to believe that the particularly heinous and brutal treatment Christian Smalls was subjected to by Israeli authorities was not a function of racism given it was not inflicted on other Handala detainees.And the US media dgaf.
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— Nathan Kalman-Lamb (@nkalamb.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 4:53 AM
The executive board of ALU-IBT Local 1 said on social media Tuesday, "We demand the immediate and unconditional release of all detained activists aboard the flotilla, an end to targeted racist treatment, and we call on the broader labor movement to take a stance for Palestinian liberation."
" Gaza has been under a relentless and inhumane military assault for nearly two years," the board added. "This genocide has caused mass starvation, the forced displacement of millions, and the intentional deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians. There is an immediate need for unrestricted food and medical aid to Gaza."
On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said that the death toll from Israel's 662-day assault and siege on Gaza topped 60,000, although that figure is likely a vast undercount, according to multiple peer-reviewed studies.
Also on Tuesday, the United Nations-affiliated Integrated Phase Food Security Classification warned that the "worst-case scenario" has already taken hold in Gaza, where half a million people are enduring famine-like conditions, more than 20,000 children have been treated for malnutrition since April, and at least 147 people—including at least 88 children—have died of starvation, according to U.N. and local officials.
The Handala was the third FFC vessel to attempt to break Israel's decadeslong blockade and deliver aid to Gaza since Israel launched its war and siege on Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.
In May, the Conscience was attacked twice in international waters off Malta, presumably by Israeli forces. No one was harmed in what FFC said was a drone strike on the ship. However, the activists were forced to abort their mission.
Last month, Israeli forces seized the U.K.-flagged Madleen and detained its crew members as they sought to deliver food, children's prosthetics, and other supplies to Gaza. FFC volunteers aboard the Madleen included Rima Hassan—a member of the European Parliament—and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Fifteen years ago, Israeli forces raided an FFC convoy carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israeli attackers killed nine FFC volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
FFC volunteers vowed to keep trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, despite the risks to their lives and liberty.
"Our countries are allowing Israel to deliberately starve Palestinians as part of this genocidal campaign that it has been carrying out. And we are horrified and not going to sit by and not do anything about it," Arraf told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman during a Monday interview.
"We will not stop," Arraf added. "So we are actively working on another one. We want the whole world to see the extent to which Israel goes to prevent baby formula from getting into Gaza, and hopefully rise up in all ways possible. Until the siege is broken, the genocide ends, and Palestine is free, we will continue sailing."
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Where's the Outrage Over Labor Leader Chris Smalls' Violent Arrest by the IDF?
Despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the U.S. when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his violent detention by the IDF three days ago.
Jul 29, 2025
On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces boarded the Handala, a ship associated with the Flotilla Freedom Coalition, that was attempting to reach Gaza with supplies for starving Palestinians. The IDF detained 21 activists, who had their hands held up, in graphic images that were captured by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
Among those on the ship was Chris Smalls, who gained fame when he led a successful union drive at Amazon in Staten Island in 2022. Former U.S. President Joe Biden even invited Smalls to meet with him at the White House to strategize on union organizing in 2022.
On Monday, details emerged that not only was Smalls detained, but he was physically beaten by the IDF. He was the only Black member of the Freedom Flotilla on the Handala.
"The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that upon arrival in Israeli custody, U.S. human rights defender, Christian Smalls, was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals," wrote the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on Instagram. "They choked him and kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back."
His international union leader, Teamsters union president Sean O'Brien, has stayed silent on the detention of Smalls.
Still, despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the U.S. when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his violent detention by the IDF three days ago.
In 2022, The New York Times even ran a Style section profile on his fashion choices among more than a dozen pieces that they ran on his organizing efforts, but the paper has not said anything about the detention and beating of a high-profile labor activist at the hands of the IDF. Only three smaller left-leaning outlets, Zeteo, The Grio, and Jezebel, covered it.
"This totally makes sense," wrote University of New Brunswick Professor Nathan Kalman-Lamb on Bluesky. "A notable public figure in the U.S. (Amazon labor organizer Christian Smalls) is illegally arrested by Israel and subjected to severe physical violence while on a hunger strike… and not one U.S. media outlet of any type has decided that is news."
Some union leaders have already begun to speak out about his detention.
"As a union, we are demanding the immediate release of Chris Smalls and all captured activists," said the 29,000-member California Faculty Association in a statement late Monday. "We further call for an immediate end to the engineered famine and deliberate starving of the people in Gaza, labor complicity with genocide, and all U.S. military aid to Israel".
Other unions are expected to denounce the beating and detention of Smalls by the IDF.
However, his international union leader, Teamsters union president Sean O'Brien, has stayed silent on the detention of Smalls, who founded the Amazon Labor Union, which is now an affiliate of the Teamsters.
Instead, the Teamsters President Sean O'Brien took to social media to advertise his upcoming interview with fascist commentator Vivek Ramaswamy and his 3 million right-wing followers.
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'What Oligarchy Looks Like': Trump Reportedly Picks Union-Busting Lawyer for Labor Post
Crystal Carey is a partner at Morgan Lewis, the "top choice of union-busting rat bastards everywhere," one labor journalist said, highlighting how "Amazon has taken full advantage of their evil talents."
Mar 18, 2025
Amid widespread frustrations with U.S. President Donald Trump's attacks on working people, including his pursuit of an economic agenda "of, by, and for billionaires," the Republican is reportedly considering yet another betrayal: installing a partner at "a go-to union-busting law firm" as the next general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.
That's according to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo—and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, who is fighting her ouster in court. Dayen exclusively reported Monday that Trump plans to replace Abruzzo with Crystal Carey from "the notorious anti-union law firm Morgan Lewis."
Carey is "a former NLRB attorney with experience on both the general counsel and board sides of the agency," according to her biography on the firm's website. Now, "she represents employers" across a wide range of industries for collective bargaining, labor law counseling, and NLRB investigations and litigation.
Since the 1950s, her firm has been "involved in some of the most prominent labor battles in America... from the 1981 air traffic controllers strike to efforts by McDonald's to resist the Fight for $15," Dayen explained. "One of Morgan Lewis' biggest current clients is Amazon, which used algorithmic management and surveillance tactics to prevent unionization at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in 2021. Amazon also has an active lawsuit that seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional."
While Dayen's multiple sources didn't know when a formal announcement would be made and the White House did not respond to a request for comment, the journalist—and many readers of his report—highlighted that "the selection would confirm that any talk of the second term of President Trump being in any way pro-labor was largely lip service or sheer fantasy."
The Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO said on social media: "Union-busting is disgusting, especially when it's coming from the highest office. When unelected billionaires have the ear of an already corrupt president, workers and working families will continue to be on the chopping block. This is what oligarchy looks like, folks."
Labor journalist Kim Kelly sarcastically said, "More great stuff from the 'pro-worker' administration."
"To emphasize how much this sucks, Morgan Lewis is *the* top choice of union-busting rat bastards everywhere and Amazon has taken full advantage of their evil talents to harass and intimidate low-wage workers in the South out of organizing," she added.
Jimmy Williams, general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said Trump's reported selection of Carey "comes as a complete shock to No ONE."
Some critics took aim at International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien, who has repeatedly faced backlash for cozying up to Trump's GOP since he spoke at the Republican National Convention last summer. He also came under fire for praising Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump's labor secretary pick, who was confirmed last week.
Dayen noted that "labor secretary is not a big policymaking job, at least not compared to the NLRB general counsel. The general counsel sets priorities for NLRB cases, which govern union elections and rights in the workplace. The Labor Department has important priorities as well, but the work to end the slide in union density in the United States really begins at the NLRB."
In response to Dayen's reporting, Emma Lydon, managing director of government relations at Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: "Great work, Sean O'Brien. Cozying up to fascists and billionaires really worked out well for all of us."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for Progressive Mass, similarly quipped, "Congratulations to Sean O'Brien!"
The labor podcast Work Stoppage said: "Thanks Sean O'Brien for claiming Trump wants to help U.S. workers! He just gave the most powerful labor law post in the country to one of the lawyers fighting the Teamsters at Amazon."
"Allying with the right didn't work for Teamsters" under former Presidents Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, the podcast's account added, "and it won't work now."
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'He's Selling Out': Teamsters President Faces Backlash for Cozying Up to GOP
One labor journalist called his comments regarding right-to-work "shameful" and "embarrassing."
Feb 20, 2025
International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien faced backlash from labor movement voices on Wednesday for expressing his support for U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Labor and for appearing to take a softer stance on so-called "right-to-work" laws—policies generally decried by organized labor because they allow employees to opt out of union expenses while working at a unionized establishment.
Labor journalist Alex Press called his comments regarding right-to-work "shameful" and "embarrassing."
Over the summer, Press spoke with rank-and-file Teamsters members about recent actions from O'Brien that signal a rightward shift, such as his decision to headline the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention. "Some are undoubtedly thrilled," wrote Press, though "a growing number of members believe their president is offering a straightforward, if not always explicit, endorsement of a political party that wants to destroy them."
On Wednesday, O'Brien attended the Senate confirmation hearing of Oregon Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump's labor pick, during which Chavez-DeRemer said she would support Trump's agenda, according to The New York Times. Chavez-DeRemer also told senators that she no longer supports a section of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—sweeping Democratic labor legislation that was introduced in Congress but never passed—which would have weakened state right-to-work laws.
Speaking later Wednesday on Fox News, O'Brien said of Chavez-DeRemer, "Not only do we support her appointment, we are going to the mat to make sure that she gets confirmed."
When asked about Chavez-DeRemer's stance on the right-to-work section of the PRO Act, O'Brien said that he is working with senators such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to come up with a version of the PRO Act that "may not include that."
"That's the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn't work for it—but more importantly, what's going to work for the American worker," O'Brien said.
A clip of these comments was reposted by the National Right to Work Committee, a group dedicated to "combating the evils of compulsory unionism," according to its website.
"The Teamsters union is as decentralized as the country. Like the median voter, most Teamsters aren't closely following what Sean O'Brien is saying," wrote labor journalist Luis Feliz Leon in response. "The press should ensure they know how he's selling out members to cozy up to anti-worker politicos and bolstering the power of bosses."
In the same Fox News interview, O'Brien also said the Teamsters do not want to see anyone losing their job, but that "[Trump] thinks he's within his right," when asked about the personnel-slashing Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration's widely decried deferred resignation program for nearly all federal employees. Multiple federal employees unions are currently battling the Trump administration in court over its actions targeting federal workers and federal agencies.
"What a shame. Teamsters deserve better than this," wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in response on Bluesky.
Another labor journalist, Kim Kelly, denounced a video posted Wednesday by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)—whom O'Brien nearly physically fought during a Senate hearing last year—in which Mullin and O'Brien chum it up and both express support for Chavez-DeRemer.
Also in response to the video, an observer on X with username katy, who indicates they are a part UFCW Local 371, wrote, "class traitor."
"I was raised in a Teamsters household, survived because of union benefits, and still do. I'd rather starve than lick a boot," katy wrote. "We're the union."
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Teamsters Union Launches 'Largest Strike Against Amazon in US History'
"We are fighting against a vicious union-busting campaign, and we are going to win," said one Amazon warehouse worker.
Dec 19, 2024
The Teamsters launched what the union described as "the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history" on Thursday morning to protest the e-commerce behemoth's unlawful refusal to bargain with organized drivers and warehouse workers across the country.
Workers in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, and other locations are expected to participate in Thursday's strike, with more facilities prepared to join if Amazon's management doesn't agree to negotiate contracts with unionized employees.
The union said Wednesday that Teamsters locals are also "putting up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide."
"Amazon warehouse workers and drivers without collective bargaining agreements have the legal right to honor these picket lines by withholding their labor," the Teamsters said.
Sean O'Brien, the union's president, said in a statement late Wednesday that "if your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon's insatiable greed." The Teamsters had given Amazon until December 15 to agree to contract talks.
"We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it," said O'Brien. "These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they've pushed workers to the limit and now they're paying the price. This strike is on them."
The Teamsters union represents roughly 10,000 workers at 10 facilities across the U.S., at least seven of which are taking part in Thursday's walkout.
Leah Pensler, a warehouse worker at Amazon's DCK6 facility in San Francisco, said that "what we're doing is historic."
"We are fighting against a vicious union-busting campaign, and we are going to win," Pensler added.
(Photo: Eloise Goldsmith/Common Dreams)
Ali Mohammed, who works for an Amazon Delivery Service Partner, told Common Dreams on the picket line at the DBK4 facility in Queens that drivers usually work 10-hour shifts, sometimes more, to handle the large number of packages they receive daily. Mohammed said he drives Uber on the side to make ends meet.
"I'm hoping they can sit down and, you know, strike up a conversation at least… and make a deal," Mohammed said, adding that Amazon should "look out for their workers a lot more instead of just thinking of their own pockets."
Amazon, which has a market cap of over $2 trillion and spends big on anti-union consultants, insists it doesn't have a legal obligation to bargain with the Teamsters and has accused the union of attempting to "coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them."
But the National Labor Relations Board has said Amazon is a joint employer of some of its delivery drivers, meaning the company must bargain with workers who have joined the Teamsters.
"Amazon is one of the biggest, richest corporations in the world," said Gabriel Irizarry, a driver at DIL7 in Skokie, Illinois. "They talk a big game about taking care of their workers, but when it comes down to it, Amazon does not respect us and our right to negotiate for better working conditions and wages. We can't even afford to pay our bills."
Yuli Lema, a driver for a different Amazon Delivery Service Partner, told Common Dreams that her pay is "not sufficient" and she simply wants Amazon to "sit down with the union and negotiate."
"Why [don't] they want to negotiate with us?" Lema asked.
The strike comes months after the Amazon Labor Union, which successfully organized warehouse workers in Staten Island in 2022, voted to formally affiliate with the Teamsters in an effort to finally secure a contract. The JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island is among the facilities that have voted to authorize strikes.
"I've seen the Teamsters win big battles," said Dia Ortiz, a worker at DBK4 in New York. "We're ready to do what it takes to win this one."
Rich Pawlikowski, a United Parcel Service driver who joined Amazon workers on the picket line in Queens on Thursday morning, told Common Dreams that "we're all standing together."
"They're not looking to get rich," Pawlikowski said of striking Amazon workers. "They just want a living wage. You know, New York's expensive. We just want everybody [to have] enough to pay their rents, to pay their bills, to eat, to put a roof over their heads, and for their families to have a decent life."
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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 Prospect reported 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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The Republican Party Is the Anti-Worker Party. Full Stop.
Why didn’t Teamster president Sean O’Brien use his allotted speaking time to ask the Republicans to adopt the pro-union initiatives that Democrats support and that Republican members of Congress have opposed?
Jul 17, 2024
The Republican Party began its national convention Monday night, with a bow to … (wait for it) … organized labor. You read that correctly.
A few days ago, the Republican National Committee sent out an email with this remarkably ironic headline:
“RNC STATEMENT ON FAILED BIDEN’S ANTI-UNION, PRO-CHINA POLICIES”
This was followed by an even more absurd RNC statement:
Joe Biden is not pro-union, he is pro-CCP—forcing EV mandates to please Communist China while making gas prices soar and killing auto industry jobs. If Biden really cared about working class Americans, he would stop caving to China, unleash our energy, and make life affordable again for working families. President Trump put hard-working Americans first once, and he will do it again when he’s back in the White House.
As my friend Harold Meyerson, writing for The American Prospect, notes, the RNC statement didn’t address the Republicans’ enduring and ongoing opposition to unions, or the officials Trump appointed when president (Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, et al.) who devoted themselves to crippling unions in every way they could.
It ignored the assessments of dispassionate historians that Biden is either the most pro-union president since FDR or the most pro-union president ever.
Harold went on to explain that the RNC email was intended as something of a tease, laying a bit of groundwork for the opening night of the Republican convention last night, when the prime-time 10 p.m. speaking slot was awarded to Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters.
Despite the misgivings and stunned disbelief of numerous Teamster officials, O’Brien has been playing footsie with Trump for a number of months, donating $45,000 of the members’ money to help fund the Republican convention (he gave an equal amount to the Democrats), inviting Trump in to speak to his executive board, and now, effectively kicking off the televised portion of the Republican convention.
O’Brien’s openness to Trump overlooks a Biden record that includes bailing out the union’s multi-employer pension fund and jump-starting a manufacturing and infrastructure renaissance with hiring stipulations favoring union workers, Teamsters very much included. For which reason, among many others, a number of Teamster officers have taken issue with O’Brien’s Trumpian tilt.
As Jonathan Weisman has reported in The New York Times, the Teamsters national office has come down hard on those critics, including filing suit against a member discussion website for using the word “Teamster” in its title.
Why didn’t O’Brien use his allotted speaking time to ask the Republicans to adopt the pro-union initiatives that Democrats support and that Republican members of Congress have opposed — like the PRO Act, which would enable workers to unionize without fear of being fired, or raising the national minimum wage from its current $7.25?
Why didn’t O’Brien ask them to endorse the recent ruling from Biden’s OSHA that requires employers to provide heat breaks to workers in weather like the kind the nation is currently experiencing?
Or ask that Republicans on the NLRB not continue to work to destroy unions, or that Republicans, should Trump win, not scuttle the antitrust suit that Biden’s FTC has brought against Amazon, which the union is seeking to organize?
If O’Brien really wanted to do the nation a service, he would have spoken forcefully against Trump’s commitment to deporting undocumented immigrants.
Harold notes, in his years covering labor, he’s met a number of Teamsters who are themselves undocumented — the very workers and their families whom Trump has continually vowed to arrest, lock up, and deport. It’s atop Trump’s to-do list. It’s hard to see how this would be good for the Teamsters.
***
A breakdown of the 2020 presidential election exit poll showed that working-class (i.e., with no college degree) union members actually favored Trump over Biden by 6 percentage points (those with college degrees favored Biden over Trump by 48 percentage points).
Trump’s rants at enemies, real and imagined, can stir some of the same fuck-’em-all sensibilities that the legendary Jimmy Hoffa’s rants once stirred, though Hoffa put his rants in the service of building a powerful union that genuinely bettered members’ lives, while Trump puts his rants in the service of solely benefiting Donald Trump.
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Greg Casar Says There's an Easy Way to Show Which Party Is More Pro-Worker
"Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk," said the Texas Democrat.
Jul 16, 2024
As former U.S. President Donald Trump's new running mate and a union leader's speech spark discussions about the Republican Party and organized labor, one Democratic congressman on Tuesday suggested a test to see who is actually pro-worker.
Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat with a history of
advocating for workers, called for holding a vote on the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act when his colleagues in Congress return to Capitol Hill next week.
"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar said on social media. "Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk. Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"
Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the PRO Act "expands various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace." The vast majority of its co-sponsors are Democrats.
"Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"
Casar specifically called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who on Tuesday wrote for Compact Magazine about International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien's Monday night speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), acknowledging that it "came as something of a shock."
Hawley called the speech "a watershed moment" and said that "Republicans have a chance to turn the corner on labor." He also took the opportunity to highlight some of his own positions, such as more sick days for rail workers. The senator left out that he has backed "right-to-work" laws that ban union security clauses in collective bargaining agreements and opposed the PRO Act.
O'Brien—who responded by saying that Hawley "is 100% on point"—had, as The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley put it, "showered praise" on the senator during his speech. The Teamsters leader also stressed the need for pro-worker reforms.
"Labor law must be reformed," O'Brien said. "Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best. An individual cannot withstand such an assault. A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker."
He declared that "we need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ. These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption. We must put workers first."
O'Brien was invited to speak at the RNC by Trump, who on Monday secured enough delegates to become the Republican nominee and announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate—creating a ticket that Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, called "a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz told the Post that the union leader requested to speak at the Democratic National Convention next month but has not yet received an invitation.
Unlike the Teamsters, several major labor groups endorsed Biden for reelection over a year ago. The Democrat describes himself as "the most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history"—and he has mostly avoided angering organized labor, other than working with Congress to block a national rail strike in December 2022.
Biden became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line when he rallied with United Auto Workers members in September. The UAW endorsed him in January, when the group's president, Shawn Fain, sharply criticized Trump and warned that "rarely as a union do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates."
O'Brien struck a much different tone on Monday, praising the ex-president and "characterizing both parties as ambivalent about unions with room to improve," as Post reporter Jeff Stein pointed out on social media. In addition to Sanders, Stein highlighted, "there are 48 Senate sponsors of the PRO Act. They all caucus with the Democratic Party. Zero are Republicans."
Only Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)—who ditched the Democratic Party shortly after the 2022 election—have joined with the chamber's Republicans to oppose the PRO Act. In the GOP-controlled House, the bill is backed by every Democrat but just three Republicans: Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Christopher Smith (N.J.).
"On June 21, 2023, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders passed the PRO Act 11-10," Warren Gunnels, the panel's majority staff director, noted Tuesday. "Every Democrat on the committee voted yes. Every Republican on the committee voted no."
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said, "To the Republicans at the RNC who want to appear to support American labor, here's an idea: Come join us to pass the PRO Act."
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