A Teamster posted images of a fund raising letter they received from President Sean O’Brien on r/Union (warning: reddit link).
In the letter, Sean O’Brien claims that Trump is creating a new ‘Worker First’ republican party, and implores the reader to donate as much as they can to the Teamster ‘TEAM Fund’, which will be used to:
- Support Trump’s ‘Pro-Worker’ initiatives, like ‘strategic’ tariffs
- Financially back incumbent ‘pro-worker’ republican candidates for the House and Senate
- Identify pro-labor legislatures in key states and support their campaigns
Sean then introduces the next part of the letter; a message from Josh Hawley, a Christian Nationalist and Trump loyalist state senator who fist pumped the Jan 6th rioters in support.
In the letter Hawley claims Trump has eliminated the “country club elites and business tycoons” from the republican party, as well as ending the “Woke DEI agenda”.
If there was ever any doubt about O’Brien, he’s certainly showing his true colors now, bending the knee to the fascists in power and even going so far as to fund raise for them.
The letter itself:
I kind of think it’s been official for longer than that, but it certainly undeniable. This guy is pulling a right-wing grifter turn and it’s extremely obvious. I’m sad that so many people are falling for it, but they’re getting taken and he’s going to laugh all the way to the bank.
I’ve worked in three union shops in my life. The majority consistently vote against their own interests. I don’t think this guy is grifting; I think he’s got a ton of Teamsters telling him this is what they want.
I work in a teamsters shop, and the amount of rightwing absolutely bonkers shit is way higher than I’d like. I blame shitty news and shitty podcasts for brainwashing the masses. It’d be nice if the masses stopped for even 10sec to think about the shit they’re hearing though.
I’m also a Teamster (school bus driver). 90% or more of my colleagues are trumpers and it sucks. Ironically, in my district drivers do not have to join the union because a very liberal leftist old Democrat colleague successfully sued the district for the right not to join (I still don’t know why he did this, he’s not been able to explain it coherently). Most of the drivers who haven’t joined the union are anti-trump. If you want me to explain this state of affairs, I can’t.
wealthy elite
President is a billionaire
Country Club elites and business tycoons
President literally owns a country club and had a TV show due to his “business empire”
It’s a bit out of date, but it gets the point across
We’ve endorsed…Regan
Ah yes, the guy who fired 11000 striking members of PATCO. Great guy to invoke as turning out great for unions.
Ally with the people who never worked a day in their life, it’s a bold move, Cotton.
Claiming trump and his ilk are pro worker is insane
Teamsters should be quarantined. Zero cooperation or assistance from any other union until this abomination is removed.
There is a millions large working class and that guy looked to the 800 oligarchs for allies.
When I first saw it, I thought it was fake. The more you look into it, the more it seems like he was bought off or blackmailed. He keeps saying “bipartisan,” but only mentions Republican names.
2024 United States presidential election
On July 15, 2024, O’Brien became the first leader of the IBT ever to speak at a Republican National Convention, where he gave a speech encouraging delegates to respect American labor in spite of differing political allegiances. According to a Teamsters spokesperson, O’Brien also requested to speak at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. A Teamsters spokesperson said the DNC never responded to O’Brien’s request for a speaker slot at the Democratic convention.[17] Despite historical affiliations with the Democratic Party, the Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election after an internal poll revealed that 60% of their members supported Trump.[18] After this, joint councils for the states of Washington, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin individually endorsed Harris.[19]
(Over, please) (Next page, please)
Does he think the people reading this have never dealt with multi-page publications before?
Is that why my and others rural UPS terminals are getting shut down with a loss of local jobs & drivers having longer days? Kind of funny because the the UAW didn’t do that and also they won agreements to grow jobs.
A lot of people called me a lot of names last year when I called him a sellout. Pretty sure there is a leopard out there somewhere… nom nom
lmao
Most lemmings don’t seem to be able to get past a sophmore level of analysis on politics.
smoked 'em
Yeah, this is pretty old news at this point, because he came out as pro-Trump over a year ago. I wonder what he thinks now.
AFAIK he wasn’t so explicit in his endorsement until now, but I haven’t kept up with everything he’s said.
I wonder what he thinks now.
This letter is a few days old. So it appears he’s fully committed to colluding with fascists.
Republican strategists figured out neither party is the worker’s party, so in order to be the party workers vote for, you just have to say you’re the party for workers the most.
And since Democrats barely know how to interact with the public, it works.
This goes back to how Nixon exploited the Hard Hat Riot. Working class union men started to resent leftist anti-war college students due to their negative stance on veterans. The Hard Hats were motivated by a simplistic patriotism for veterans, since many of them had family in the armed forces.
Republicans saw an opportunity to exploit that cultural difference, and began to pretend to care about unions while shitting on the new left to sway the more conservative unions to switching.
Democrats enabled this shift by being neoliberal corporatists with a pinch of welfare. Corporate lobby money is too good to resist for them.
The new flavor is to appeal to racist protectionism and the conservative culture war to win over conservative unions.
60% of Teamster membership voted for Trump in the last election, making them the most susceptible to being tempted and destroyed by republicans in sheep’s clothing. O’Brien is only too willing to facilitate that destruction, and ultimately will dance to whatever tune will keep him elected, which in this case is appealing to the conservative values of 60% of his base. Slugs voting for Salt.
And since Democrats barely know how to interact with the public, it works.
they’re feckless, but honestly: who has a solution to this problem? It’s gish governance - they trot out a new, more horrible, more inconceivable lie every day so there’s never a pushback on the madness because every day is a new emergency.
sure, if we had checks and balances this could be fought, but the gop is literally bought and sold.
They put in so much effort to capture unions.
Almost like a certain set people under Mussolini and Hitler…
Surely it’s just coincidence it’s happening a century later.
Somehow successfully too. Like all you have to do is pay attention to what’s going on. These people truly live in a separate reality.
This surprises me absolutely not at all. Even in the Vancouver film industry where I make my living, one of the most queer friendly left leaning places in Canada, the Teamsters are often ridiculously right wing and pro Trump.
Less so maybe now that the leopards have actually started gnawing on their faces directly but the die hards are still at it. Riding swamper with them is often an exercise in extreme patience as they have swallowed racist, sexist, transphobic garbage without realizing the extent of the contents.
Literally had one tell me verbatim the opinions of a white south African doctor who claimed the inclusion of black Doctors during their desegregation ruined everything as anecdotal evidence that DEI was bad. (When I pointed out that was maybe not the best example to prove his point I got called racist 😅)
