Continuing the discussion on Teamster politics

On July 15, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President Sean O’Brien addressed the Republican National Convention (RNC). This highly unusual event has opened another round in the ongoing discussion on the labor left on how to approach the O’Brien leadership. For example, long time labor writer Joe Allen strongly criticized O’Brien in a piece on the Counterpunch website. The International Socialism Project website has made its own contributions to this discussion. I wrote an article strongly supporting the orientation of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. On April 19, Paul D’Amato submitted a comradely and intelligent reply. The purpose of today’s article is to continue this discussion in light of O’Brien’s RNC speech.

The heart of the matter

What’s the real heart of this discussion? In my opinion, the fundamental disagreement is differing assessments of how to approach the union leadership and splits in the union bureaucracy. Of course, American union leaderships have, by and large, become comfortable and conservative after decades of espousing “win-win”, “team concept”, and partnership with the employers. Union activists have frequently had to organize caucuses to combat class collaborationist officials.

However, being in overall opposition to the union bureaucracy does not exhaust the issue for socialists. What happens at the top of the union affects what happens at the bottom of the union, and therefore the class struggle as a whole. It matters whether a particular union leadership is encouraging or blocking a particular struggle. Socialists are therefore not indifferent to different trends in the union leadership and pay careful attention to them in order to chart their possible impact on our fundamental task, the battle with the employers. It is from this vantage point that we can effectively understand the role of the O’Brien leadership.

The RNC speech

Sean O’Brien’s Milwaukee speech doesn’t fall into any previously made box and needs to be looked at carefully. The first point is to ask why did O’Brien request to speak at the RNC? There are three reasons. At the time, a Trump victory looked quite likely, and O’Brien was doing what he thought was necessary to position to survive under the new administration. It’s also no secret that a large portion of the union membership supports Trump, and the union president wished to maintain their support. Finally, O’Brien also simultaneously requested to speak to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and wished to pose the union as a powerful “non-partisan” force.

Why did the Republicans agree to the request? They have been making a fairly half-hearted attempt to pose as a plebeian populist party. This can be seen in the “Hillbilly Elegy” speeches of JD Vance, in Josh Howley voting against the order to forbid the rail strike, and other attempts to present themselves as a party of the “common man” against the “Washington elite”.

This then was the context in which Sean O’Brien gave his convention speech. The speech itself was quite distinctive. It began with a few minutes praising his audience, famously shouting out to Trump as “one tough SOB”. Then, however, the speech morphed into an extended attack on big business and the attacks on the working class. Some representative quotations give the flavor of the bulk of the speech:

You know, corporatists hate when working people join together to form unions. But for a century, major employers have waged a war against labor by forming corporate unions of their own. We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the business roundtables what they are. They are unions for big business.

And here’s another fact. Against gigantic multinational corporations, an individual worker has zero power. It’s only when Americans band together in democratic unions that we win real improvements on wages, benefits, and working conditions.

… 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.

The speech clearly confused the convention audience. TV coverage shows a perplexed crowd unsure of whether to clap. The convention delegates knew that they were meant to applaud guest speakers but were hearing many of their core ideas directly attacked. Pundits were similarly surprised. The Young Turks podcast called it “the most left-wing speech ever given to a US political convention”.

Far right anti-union commentator Vinnie Vernnuccio complained that “… he (O’Brien) doubled down on the old, failed policies of compulsory unionism, of the big labor wish list in Congress that has failed workers time and time again. And you know, you said it. I think he absolutely whiffed the opportunity that, uh, Trump and the RNC gave him”.

We are therefore faced with a complicated situation. A prominent union leader gives a speech to a right-wing convention where he makes some favorable comments about, but no political endorsement of, his hosts. He then proceeds to give a speech mainly assailing corporate hostility to the working class and explaining why that class needs unions.

What should we make of this? Our response must be a nuanced one. On the one hand, as socialists, we see both the Democratic and Republican parties as integral components of the capitalist class and thus as our permanent and intrinsic enemies. We believe that no union leaders should have anything to do with either party. We certainly don’t endorse Sean O’Brien’s speech.

On the other hand, we realize that, for now, our opinions are a tiny minority in the labor movement. We have to deal with the reality of the real labor movement that we are working in. Virtually all union leaders, even the most militant ones, support one of the capitalist parties, generally the Democrats.

A tale of two speeches

We cannot read out of the movement any leader having any dealings with a capitalist party, for example by speaking at one of their conventions. Let’s give one example of the mistakes of this approach. Highly popular UAW President Shawn Fain spoke on August 19 at the DNC in Chicago. He fully endorsed Kamala Harris and gave great praise to the Democratic Party. Fain also, like O’Brien, made a number of comments on class antagonism in this country.

To be consistent Shawn Fain should be subject to the same barrage of criticism that Sean O’Brien has. They both spoke to conventions of capitalist parties; shouldn’t both be similarly condemned? However, in the two weeks since Fain’s speech I’ve seen no article by anyone on the labor left condemning Fain for the same crime as O’Brien.

There are probably two main reasons for this. One “lesser-evilest” and one sensible. The “lesser-evilest” argument is that it’s OK to speak to Democratic Party conventions but not to Republican conventions. It’s alright to address “extreme center” bourgeois politicians, but not right-wing bourgeois politicians. This is linked to the argument that the Democrats are the only way of stopping Trump’s “creeping fascism” in November. We recently published an excellent article on this website discussing the errors of this approach. While tacit support for the Democrats is the reason why most labor writers have not criticized the Fain speech, it should be noted that militant socialists such as Joe Allen and Paul D’Amato take an entirely different approach and are staunch opponents of lesser-evilism.

The sensible reason why Shawn Fain has not been lambasted as a betrayer is that it is obviously ludicrous. Fain was the candidate of the opposition United All Workers for Democracy caucus. The gains the UAW has made on his watch are clear for all to see: the highly successful Stand-Up strikes of last fall and the wave of new organizing that the UAW is carrying out, particularly in the South. The UAW has clearly moved forward under his leadership.

The IBT today

But the same thing can be said about the Teamsters under the O’Brien/Zuckerman leadership. Look at four recent examples of the work of the Teamsters.

The UPS contract. An earlier article on this site fully explains the real gains made in that contract.
There are several important new organizing drives. The Amazon campaign has been strengthened by the recent NLRB ruling, coming out of the Palmdale, California, organizing drive that Delivery Service Partner drivers are Amazon employees. Organizing is taking place at locations such as Costco, Chipotle, and UNFI warehouses.
There are many large locals now stepping forward to encourage rank and file mobilization and new approaches to organizing. A good example of this is IBT Local 175 in Indiana. This local recently waged an innovative and lively campaign that won real gains at Kroger, the grocery chain.
The Teamsters have been using the new tactic of the national extension of picket lines. Here picketers from one factory of a multi-location employer will picket another one of the employer’s locations. When the local union honors the picket line, production is then shut down. This tactic was used by IBT Local 705 against US Foods in Bensenville, Illinois.

It’s impossible to claim that these types of fights would have been possible if Steve Vairma, Hoffa Junior’s chosen replacement had won the last Teamsters’ election. They are evidence that Teamsters for a Democratic Union was right to support the O’Brien/Zuckerman slate.

To conclude, class struggle against the employers is our fundamental objective. That struggle is made easier if the union leadership gives its support. Therefore, what happens at the top of the union makes a difference. We evaluate a union leadership by how far they advance the struggle against the bosses. Sean O’Brien has taken political steps that a socialist would not take. However, at the same time, his leadership has made the Teamsters a stronger union. This means that socialists should support the coalition that Teamsters for a Democratic Union has made with the new Teamster leadership.