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Charlestown man won't take sides in presidential election
By adamg on Fri, 09/20/2024 - 1:14pm
CommonWealth Beacon considers the decision by Sean O’Brien, a Medford native who worked his way up from Teamsters Local 25 in Charlestown to become president of the national union, not to have the union make an endorsement in this year's presidential election. It notes that a number of Teamsters locals have endorsed Harris, including Local 122 in Dorchester.
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Comments
no one
knows exactly what Harris will do yet, we only have some idea of a positive vibe. likely, it will be similar policies that increase the wealth gap to appease the donor class and push America further toward a collapse, although slowly enough that there is time to think, resist, plan.
everyone with a decent middle school education knows what Trump is about. the moral weakness of not being able to publicly take a stand against psychofascism is a really bad, tribal, backward, smug, defeated look.
yuck
Why is this news?
He's simply trying to listen to the due paying members.
More unions should follow suit and conduct member polling and vote/endorse accordingly. After all unions are about representation!
What I find useful here
Now the GOP can't pull the usual "the leaders are telling the rank and file how to vote" and "union leaders are out of touch with their members" when unions endorse their opponents.
Correction -Medford man….he
Correction -Medford man….he isn’t from Charlestown
True
From Medford, but known for being head of the Charlestown local.
he got sucked in by Vance and Hawley
was trying to move the GOP to more worker-friendly
tbh, Democrats haven't always been supportive of unions - remember the Boston Calling prosecutions of union-friendly Boston city officials under Obama and his corporate stooge AG Holder?
Old enough to remember the support of Hoffa's Teamsters for Nixon
remember the Boston Calling
Excusing that particular egregious abuse of authority by describing it as “union-friendly” is quite a take.
are you an interested party, by chance?
The case was pretty simple and clear.
Two officials of the City of Boston told Boston Calling that if they wanted to use city public property (City Hall Plaza) for their for-profit concert enterprise, they would have to use local union labor paying a prevailing wage for their set-up work and not imported low-wage scabs. It was entirely within the discretion of the elected government of the City of Boston to allow the use of public property for a for-profit enterprise or not, and they could set the conditions of that use. That is what elections are for.
The outrage is that the Obama Justice Department prosecuted that case at all.
Judge Sorokin threw it out of court for the reasons I explained.
yeah
Yeah what's up with the Teamsters?
I read an article the other day about this.
The article mentioned that the reasoning had to do with the teamsters national group didn't think Harris would back the union if they had issues. (I am being vague here b/c I cant recall the exact details). They said the same about Trump so they won't endorse either one.
Yeah Harris may not be their person but uh.. if Trump gets his way, he will union bust.
Starting to think the MAGA Syndrome Illness started to affect OBrien here. especially when local teamsters across the nation are supporting Harris. And other unions such as the ALF-CIO have fully supported Harris.
unions are private organizations
they aren't the missionaries they hold themselves out to be. Until VERY recently the vast majority of trade unions working on projects in Boston would laugh at unconnected local people trying to get in, especially minorities and women.
The Carmen's Union Needs Busting
So do several police unions.
Police unions - maybe
The real problem with police unions is that local politicians suck up to them, and they aren't sanctioned when they violate RICO by harassing those who stand up to them.
The rest is just you wanting to destroy unions in general.
I see no reason to bust the T union when it was Charlie Bakeoff and his multi-decade hard-on for the existence of public transit that wrecked the place, not the rank and file. It all goes back to "forward funding" designed to drown the T in a bathtub.
Recent history
Biden (and Congress) prevented rail workers from striking in 2022, may have worked against an ups strike in 2023. Teamsters involved in both of those. Now Biden also included protection for 600,000 teamsters’ pensions in one of the spending packages.
Trump will appoint virulently anti-union bureaucrats and judges, do nothing good legislatively for via executive order for unions.
So give Sean O’Brien, this union and its members credit for putting shitty political interests above their own interests, tacitly supporting and voting for an administration that will hasten their demise.
How do you fail to mention
The rank and file members were polled and overwhelmingly supported Trump, hence the lack of an endorsement for Harris. If anything, wouldn’t his lack of endorsing Trump be odd.
All for democracy I guess until you don’t like the results.
Please link and cite sources
How, exactly, do you know this, anon?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Someone should follow the news
It was widely reported, including in stories about the lack of endorsements, that the Teamsters polled their membership. Trump has the rank and file’s support.
The $4.00 investment into the daily Globe is worth it, trust me.
If it was "widely reported"...
...then you should be able to provide citations.
Mind you, it may well have been. But your answer was weak as a wet paper bag.
Astounding
that you and the sockpuppet advertise your ignorance of a story that was on the front of the web pages of the Globe, Herald, NY Times, CNN, Washington Post, CBS, etc etc.
You think you're playing a gotcha - you only got yourselves.
To catch you up on other news, someone shot at Trump a few weeks ago and was in turn killed, and then a second guy was lurking around his golf club in Florida to shoot him.
There's also a presidential election coming up.
Ahem
WTF do lunatics having easy access to weapons have to do with the Teamsters?
Nice what aboutism.
If you really think Trump cares about you, I suggest you stream From Russia with Lev and see exactly how the man treats people who love, support, and will do about anything for him.
Then again, you seem to share an obsession ...
This Guy Just Loves Attention
This guy spoke at the RNC and assumed he would also be speaking at the DNC but because he spoke at the RNC he was not welcome at the DNC (because he legitimized a union-hating candidate and party).
He reached out to Kamala’s team and they ignored him and completely ghosted him, hurting his fee fees.
He is choosing not to endorse out of pure spite. Teamsters who vote against their own self-interests are also doing so purely out of spite and hatred of their perceived enemies.
well maybe he should have been able to speak at the DNC
Maybe the "spite" was with the Democrats. Why wouldn't they want a leader of a large union to speak at their convention?
Because he chose to speak at the RNC and cozy up to Trump
O'Brien very clearly answered the question "Which side are you on?" and the answer is not good for the members of his union.
I look forward to him losing in the next Teamsters election.
Why would any member of a union support Trump?
Has he *ever* done anything that favors unions or members of unions?
Uhhh, well
He collects a union pension from his SAG membership so I suppose he's done something that favors one (former) union member, after he resigned his membership a few years ago.
I checked
I did not know this, so I checked.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/donald-trump-sag-af...
(From 2023)
jfc he's always grifting.. always. He's pretty anti-union, yet does this. He would sell is soul for a buck.. oh wait, he probably already has.
The issues that matter to voters
I don't think anyone in the labor force is supporting Trump for his union stance.
If you want to know what they're supporting just watch some videos of him rambling on at his shows.
O'Brien is head of the International Teamsters
Not the national union.
Mild quibble for the sake of accuracy.
But thanks for this story, Adam.
Definitely has a local angle.
On a personal note I've previously worked with Local 25 members for years.
Definitely exceptions but by and large they were racist Republican leaning voters.
Don't forget the Teamsters endorsed Reagan in '84.