On Monday, July 15, on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former president Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no ordinary RNC filler. And to anyone watching, or anyone paying attention to the political reality in this country, this was no ordinary RNC either. O’brien’s very presence on the RNC stage, and the contents of his speech, which lasted for 17 minutes, have sparked a firestorm of intense reactions and furious debates within the labor movement and the Republican and Democratic parties alike. Everyone is talking about this speech and what it all means for workers, but workers themselves need to be driving that conversation. In this special episode, cohosted by Max and Mel Buer, we bring together a diverse panel of Teamster members from across the country to have a spirited, fair, and productive discussion about O’Brien’s speech, the 2024 elections, and the future of the labor movement.

Speakers include: Amber Mathwig, a UPS warehouse worker and member of Teamsters Local 638 in Minnesota; Tony, a UPS worker, member of Teamsters Local 174 in Seattle, and a member of Teamsters Mobilize; Chantelle, a part-time UPS worker and member of Teamsters Local 177 in New Jersey; Rick Smith, a 35-year Teamster working in the freight industry and host of The Rick Smith Show; Zoey Moretti Niebuhr, a UPS worker, third-generation Teamster, member of Teamsters Local 391 in North Carolina, and president of Pride at Work—North Carolina; Jess Leigh, a UPS worker, shop steward for Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta, and a member of the Teamsters LBGTQ Caucus and Teamsters Mobilize; Kat, a part-time UPS worker and shop steward for Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland; and Robert Conklin, a third-generation Teamster and member of Teamsters Local 665 in San Francisco.

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  • Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Amber Mathwig:

My name is Amber Mathweg out of Minnesota with local 638, and I am working preload at UPS.

Tony:

Hey, everyone, my name’s Tony. I’m a UPS teamster out of Local 174 in Seattle, Washington. I’m a member of Teamsters Mobilize. We’re a reform organization in the Teamsters.

Chantelle:

Hi, everyone. My name is Chantal. I’m a UPS part-timer in local 177 North Jersey, and I’m very glad to be here.

Rick Smith:

Hi, I’m Rick Smith, host of the Rick Smith Show, and a 35-year teamster in the freight industry.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

Hey, all, I’m Zoe. I’m a UPS Teamster at a local 391 in North Carolina. Third-generation teamster, also Prez of North Carolina Pride at work.

Jess Leigh:

Hey, guys, my name is Jess. I am a preload steward at UPS out of local 728 in Atlanta, and I am a member of the LGBTQ Caucus, a member of Teamsters Mobilize, and a recently banned member of TDU, but still hoping to bring good change. Nice to be here.

Kat:

Hey y’all, Kat out of Oakland Teamsters local 70, where I work as a part-timer at UPS, also as a shop steward.

Robert Conklin:

Robert Conklin, Teamsters local 665 San Francisco North Bay, third generation Teamster. Became a member in 2000. My claim to fame as had been hired and fired from every barn in the local. Casual UPS driver during the holidays. And right currently I’m in sales at a Teamster organized frozen food company.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor, and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network. And please, support the work that we’re doing here at Working People, because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your co-workers, your friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to. And please, support the work that we do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. My name is Maximilian Alvarez.

Mel Buer:

And I’m Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And we’ve got a doozy of an episode for y’all today. As you guys can guess from this incredible panel of Teamsters Union members that we have assembled here, we put out the bat signal and the Batmen and women and siblings came a-coming. We are diving right into the story that has set the labor world on fire this week. And make no mistake, this is not just a labor story. What we’re talking about today will impact all of us.

Mel Buer:

On Monday, July 15th, on day one of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former President Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no ordinary RNC filler. And to anyone watching, or anyone paying attention to the political reality in this country, this was no ordinary RNC either. O’Brien’s very presence on the RNC stage and the contents of his speech, which lasted for about 17 minutes, has sparked a firestorm of intense reactions and furious debates within the labor movement and the Republican and Democratic parties alike. We’ve linked to the full speech in the show notes of this episode, and we encourage listeners to watch it in its entirety, but we’re going to play about three minutes worth of clips here at the top of the episode to give you a clear sense of what we’re going to be talking about today, and why it’s important. Take a listen.

Sean O’Brien:

Today, today the teachers are here to say, “We are not beholden to anyone or any party.” We’ll create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker. And I don’t care about getting criticized. It’s an honor to be the first teamster in our 121-year history to address the Republican National Convention. To be frank, when President Trump invited me to speak at this convention, there was political unrest on the left and on the right. Hard to believe. Anti-union groups demanded the President rescind his invitation. The left called me a traitor. And this is precisely why it’s so important for me to be here today.

Think about this. Think about this. The [inaudible 00:06:22] are doing something correct, if the extremes in both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage. Now, you can have whatever opinion you want, but one thing is clear: President Trump is a candidate who was not afraid of hearing from new, loud, and often critical voices. And I think we all can agree, whether people like him, or they don’t like him, in light of what happened to him on Saturday, he has proven to be one tough SOB.

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 around tables what they are. They are unions for big business. And here’s another fact against gigantic multinational corporation. 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. Companies like Amazon are bigger than most national economies. Amazon is valued over $2 trillion. That makes it the 14th largest economy in the world. What is sickening is that Amazon has abandoned any national allegiance. Amazon’s sole focus is on lining its own pockets. Remember, elites have no party, elites have no nation. Their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price at the expense of the American worker.

We need trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier for companies to remain in America. We need legal protections that make it safer for workers to get a contract. We must stop corporations from abandoning local communities to inflate their bottom line. Labor law must be reformed. 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, and 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.

Mel Buer:

Reactions to the speech have been polarized to say the least, while certain lines from O’Brien’s speech garnered cheers and applause from the conservative, traditionally anti-union crowd at the RNC, many lines from that speech emphatically did not. And while many Republican voting and conservative leaning union members have expressed excitement about O’Brien’s speech, O’Brien has faced an avalanche of criticism from within his own union and across the labor movement, even one member of the Teamsters digital team went rogue and posted a now-deleted tweet from the Teamsters main social account on X, criticizing O’Brien’s fawning praise for Republican Senator Josh Hawley. “Unions gain nothing from endorsing the racist, misogynistic, and anti-trans politics of the far right,” the post said. “No matter how much people like Senator Hawley attempt to tether such bigotry to a cynical, pro-labor message.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

Everyone is talking about this speech, and what it all means for workers. But workers themselves need to be driving that conversation. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here today. We’re putting working people in the driver’s seat where they belong. And we are so grateful to have so many hardworking folks here with a range of critical perspectives that need to be heard. And as we toss things to our incredible panel of teamsters, a quick note on the ground rules here, because we want to make the best use of this time that we all have together. So Mel and I will primarily be here to ask questions and moderate, so that we’re making sure that everyone gets a chance to say their piece, and everyone gets equal time to speak, because we’ve got a lot of great folks here. And we’ve designated a batting order of speakers, and we’re going to go in that order with each round of questions.

So it’s not going to be a full back and forth sort of discussion given all the voices that we have on today. We want to prioritize giving everyone a chance to say their piece. And we’ll try to go around the table as many times as we can in the time that we’ve got. Lastly, I know we’ve all got lots and lots of thoughts and feelings about this speech. And we absolutely want this to be a lively, fair, forward moving discussion where everyone can speak freely and frankly, but we also want to model for our audience and our fellow workers and union members what respectful and productive conversation looks like.

And we want to encourage folks out there to get involved in these kinds of discussions in their own union halls, in their living rooms and so on. And so swearing is totally okay. In fact, it is encouraged here on Working People. But no personal attacks, no slurs, no anything like that. None of that will be tolerated. And we encourage folks out there who are going to have these kinds of conversations to just check in, set some ground rules, and then dig in with your fellow workers, your family members, and your community members, and talk about the things that are really important to you. And so with all that up top, I say let’s get to it. Mel, do you want to toss the first question to our incredible panel?

Mel Buer:

Yeah. So, it’s a good place to start just to get folks general thoughts. What are the impressions of the speech itself? Did you watch it in its entirety? Did you see pieces of it online that you found to be particularly interesting and/or odious? What were the conversations that you’ve been having with other members about it? Other fellow rank and file in your own local, or online? Yeah, let’s just get your general thoughts to start off the conversation.

Amber Mathwig:

Yeah, this is Amber. I knew it was happening. I didn’t know if I’d be awake for it. For preload, we’re starting at 4:00 AM right now, and so I’m usually asleep shortly around this time that we’re talking tonight. But I had fallen asleep really early, and I woke up at like 9:05. And I thought I had missed it, I was like, “Oh, I’ll find it online.” And then I realized, “No, they’re probably behind. They’re always going to be behind.” And so I just laid there on the couch, and I watched the whole thing. And I think if my brother was up here, he would say that I was screaming at the television so loud in real time. It was like, “This is so surreal.” I’m just hearing this crazy spew out of his mouth. Just unquestionably giving love to Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance, and Josh Hawley.

And my primary thought was, “There is no historical support for closing up to fascism.” You think you’re going to get somewhere with this? You think you’re going to get workers somewhere? You are going to end up leaving behind so many people that it’s in favor of a white nationalist state. That’s who they’re seeking profits or labor for. I was also thinking through how much, or how little applause he got for the most part. There was just not a lot of enthusiasm when he was attacking corporations and a couple of other thoughts, but largely it just felt like everyone was embarrassed and everyone was disappointed. And then to wake up the next morning and see him 100% everything Josh Hawley says, and then almost the very first thing is, “We need to get away from the queers and the people of color in the workplace.” It’s like, oh, 100%. 100%.

And I think that there’s historical support for that, that he did use racial slurs on the campaign or on the contract trail last year. There was the recent lawsuit settled for racism. It’s unsurprising, and also, it is very surprising at the same time how he looked like a schoolboy who just got away with stealing a chocolate, or something. Just so giddy and excited about being there, and then just being so dismissive of the 1.2 million teamsters that he is supposed to be accountable to. And that’s where I’m going to wrap up right now.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And just to a clarifying point for folks listening, what Amber was referring to there, the day after the RNC was, an article that Senator Josh Hawley wrote for Compact Magazine entitled The Promise of Pro-Labor Conservatism, which then Sean O’Brien tweeted from his ex account, his personal ex account saying Josh Hawley is 100% right. And we will link to that tweet in the show notes as well.

Tony:

What I find so amazing is Sean O’Brien’s ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In this speech, he talked about taking on big corporations. He said that the Teamsters Union will not be beholden to this or that political party. But talk is cheap, and workers need action. So what will be seen from Sean O’Brien in reality? Very different from his rhetoric. He says that the Teamsters Union is not going to be beholden to this or that political party, but he worked hand in glove with the Biden administration to crush the rail struggle. He worked hand in glove with the Biden administration in backroom deals with Carol Tomé, UPS CEO, to put together a last minute sell out agreement in 2023 to a verdict strike. So I don’t buy this rhetoric from O’Brien.

Chantelle:

Yeah, this is Chantelle. I’ll just say a little bit more about who I am. But yeah, I’m a UPS part-timer. I’m on Dasort in Northern New Jersey, and I’m a member of Teamsters Mobilize. I’m here with a number of my fellow TM members, who we all organized in the Vote No 2023 UPS contract campaign. And I’m also a member of Maoist Communist Union.

My thoughts watching it was, I guess overall not too surprised based on everything that we’ve seen from O’Brien from the very beginning of his presidency. For years, I think it was early last year in some senate hearing, he was talking about how unions are really good for business, how he has great working relationships with the CEOs of all these various companies. And when companies do well, the unions do well, the workers do well. So I mean, I think up until relatively recently in this election season, most or a lot of that was directed towards the Biden administration, and like Tony mentioned, the collaboration that they had on the rail contract and the UPS contract to sell out the workers.

But yeah, there’s a lot of disturbing things that he said in his speech, where he is really trying to put forward that actually workers and our bosses, and the capitalists, do have shared interests. And he said it in a few different ways, which maybe we can talk about later. But with regards to bringing back jobs to the US and stuff like that, really whipping up a lot of, obviously, nationalists kind of US patriotism, chauvinism, which is quite dangerous.

But yeah, I think for me, in terms of what we’ve seen from him, in terms of all of his rhetoric, is all bluster about caring about the workers. And he said, “Oh, I go around every week and I talk to my members.” It’s like, we actually know what you’re like to talk to, because so many of us have met him during the UPS contract negotiations. He came to my building, completely avoided, deflected my question of, “Will we strike if there’s a TA that the workers haven’t agreed on?” Because up to that point, that’s what he’d been saying. And then he was like, “Oh, well, no one really wants to strike. Strikes are hard.”

And then at LaborNotes he spoke on a panel and I asked him a few questions afterwards about the UPS contract, about why there was a new tier for part-time workers, about the fact that there was close collaboration with the Biden administration to avert a strike, all these things. And he completely brushed me off. He almost running away saying he had to catch a plane.

So yeah, I think a lot of us who are pretty involved in I think the Teamsters, organizing, and have met Sean O’Brien at various conferences and conventions, or at our barns, this is pretty much like a continuation of his whole tenure as the Teamsters president up to this point.

Rick Smith:

Hi, I’m Rick Smith, host of the Rick Smith Show. And if you want to find out everything I’ve said about Sean O’Brien, you can check out our podcast. I have spoken extensively about this, since January, since the Mar-a-Lago trip and the whole thumbs up thing. My problem is this isn’t about Sean O’Brien. This is about the fact that I lived through four years of Donald Trump’s tenure. I lived through a labor department that was hostile to workers. I lived through a department, a labor secretary who, well, the one they wanted was a fast food restaurant, CEO, who wanted to eliminate workers. The other one, well, just a corporate Walmart lawyer. And the NLRB under him was horrible. His general counsel was the guy who was instrumental in firing the PATCO workers. So the backdrop of this speech is me remembering what Donald Trump was like in the White House, how bad things were for workers, how many bad decisions came out of his NLRB, the Supreme Court justices that he put on the court that have decimated workers’ rights.

And are going to make it worse. We’re going to head back to the days of the Lockdown era, where if you’re hungry enough and desperate enough to work for poverty wages, it’s going to be your freedom. This is the path that we’re on. It’s the path that Donald Trump set us on. So understanding that is the backdrop. I look at Sean O’Brien as basically Donald Trump’s dancing show pony, who Donald Trump is going to ride right till the election, because what O’Brien accomplished was to legitimize the Trump record, and to softly attack Joe Biden’s strong point, of the fact that Joe Biden is the most pro-labor president of my lifetime, at least, and some say since FDR. So by doing that, you have given a tacit endorsement of maybe not the teamsters, but Sean O’Brien, to someone who I think one of the guys I work with said it best. How is it our general president can call a rapist a tough SOB?

And I got to be honest, I was shocked to hear that from our members, because I work in a place where this is Trump country, and central Pennsylvania is very much Trump country, and our local is very much Trump country. So to hear that was surprising. Now, the reality is he went to that convention for a reason, and that was to get attention. He got to say words in about two-thirds of the speech. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t have a problem with, I’m in favor of attacking the Chamber of Commerce, and the business round table, and all of the people who have decimated wages, hours and conditions, especially in my lifetime. The problem is these conventions, they’re big pep rallies to do one thing, and that’s to coronate their dear leader, and then get them elected. So he walked into that environment knowing that the whole purpose of that convention was to get Donald Trump and J.D. Vance elected.

Now, someone would say maybe someone sold him on the idea that he’s going to be the George Meany of this generation. He’s going to be able to whisper in Trump’s ear. The sad reality is, we’ve seen what Donald Trump does to the very best people. And I’ve been asking the question of, when Sean O’Brien is thrown under the proverbial truck, what’s his nickname going to be? This speech did nothing to help organize labor. It actually did, I think harm, by showing that there’s division in the House of Labor. I think he is opened up the secret that the teamsters are split, and that there are working people who do support Donald Trump. So instead of him going out and educating members, being a true leader and saying, “Hey, members, this guy was bad for us. Here’s all the ways he was bad for us. He chose to pander to the person who made our lives worse, and is promising, well, to eliminate us altogether.”

The sad reality is he allowed himself to be used, and history will remember that. Now, nobody’s going to remember what he said in a month, but they are going to remember that he was there. And whether the teamsters endorse or not, and I said a year ago the teamsters were going to endorse no one, which would be an endorsement for Trump. Sean O’Brien’s already endorsed Trump with that glowing review of him being a tough SOB, and being courageous to have him in there. No, he wasn’t courageous. He knows how to use people. And President O’Brien got used.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

I feel like my knee-jerk reaction to watching Sean O’Brien’s speech was, man, this guy doesn’t want to be our general president no more. He wants to get a job in whatever administration wins this election. And I would agree, I think most of us would agree that we need to, as workers, we really need to be advocating for our issues. We’re only ones that are going to do it. Rich people aren’t going to come and look out for the workers. So we got to do it ourselves, and that’s why we have unions, and that’s why we need to have independent politics as unions. And so when Sean O’Brien says something like, “The teamsters aren’t beholden to any one party,” I agree with that, but what you’re doing is you’re beholden by going to both the RNC and the DNC. You’re beholden to all these sets of politicians.

I think part of why Republicans are able to do this and get Sean O’Brien, as you said, Rick, as their show pony, is because Democrats have just not been bold enough and have not been able to deliver on a number of issues. And Republicans like Trump, like Josh Hawley, are able to grab at that low-hanging fruit. And ultimately, it’s not going to be Sean O’Brien that suffers, it’s going to be the members of our union that suffer. If a Trump administration comes in, we are going to have to face a lot of questions about what parts of Project 2025 are going to be implemented. They want to get rid of unions, they want to get rid of the NLRB, they want to get rid of OSHA. And Trump’s Supreme Court picks have already begun to chip away at that.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what Rick was saying. Sean O’Brien is definitely being used. He’s being used to sway the vote of the teamsters. 1.3 million people is a lot of people. Either way you look at it, this election’s going to be very close, and trying to win the vote of the Teamsters could make the difference of who’s the president. And Sean O’Brien knows that. Like Rick said, this is a pep rally, this is a big hoo-rah to get these votes. Sean O’Brien ran and campaigned on being a true reformer, on bringing transparency and democracy to our union. He is still creating that illusion by all the messages that he’s sending to the Teamsters, and there are many Teamsters that have not yet seen through that. They’re looking and hearing his words and not his actions of what he’s actually done. So he is, by being there and by speaking and by throwing out these names, praising these different Republicans, putting down the left, purposely leaving these pauses for the audience to boo at the left.

He was clear. He said he did not care about the criticism that he was going to receive. He said that it was his honor to be the first IBT president to speak at the RNC. That’s harmful. That is harmful to workers. It is harmful to unions. It is harmful for the future of unions, which is already in a decline. He made the statement that the last 40 years, Republicans had really been fighting for pro-labor. That is a complete lie. Republicans have been fighting to destroy unions. Look at all the right-to-work states. Look at how those laws were put into place. They were put into place by Republicans.

This is… Like Rick said, some of what he said about big business and taking advantage of workers, all that is true. But Sean O’Brien is working with those companies and enabling them to do that. He is trying to convince members that contracts are good when contracts aren’t good. That is for the benefit of the company. That is not for the benefit of the members. There are still people a year later after our UPS contract that are still saying good things about the contract.

Don’t get me wrong, this last year, more and more people’s eyes have become open. But there’s still a lot of people that aren’t as involved, that don’t have their ear to the ground, that aren’t looking into things, that still believe this rhetoric that Sean O’Brien and the TDU are putting out in regards to the UPS contract, all these other contracts that have been settled, and what Sean O’Brien is doing for labor. He’s not doing good things for labor. It’s all an illusion, it’s all smoke and mirrors. He has his own personal interest in mind. Whatever his outcome, whatever his hopes are for going and speaking at the RNC, it’s to benefit Sean O’Brien. It is not to benefit the workers.

Robert Conklin:

So listening to everybody’s viewpoint so far, I am going to be the devil’s advocate on this one, because I saw things a little differently. Now, when I first heard Sean O’Brien was going to go to the Republican National Convention, I went, “What the fuck? How is that working out?” And the more that I thought about it, I go… And it might be a difference in opinion in this room, but I said, “Sean’s not a stupid dude. He’s doing this for a reason.” Now, we had a straw poll, I don’t know, a couple months ago, or about a month ago, who you wanted for president. And I’m pretty sure Sean got those numbers, and shockingly was probably a lot closer than I would like to believe. And he had to make a decision, because the thing is, I do have a lot of fellow Teamsters that are very, very conservative, who go, “Oh, they’re just going to go with the Democrats,” or this and that, “And our voice isn’t heard,” and I’ve heard it.

They bring the pipeline up and they bring the rail strike up. And it’s kind of like I hear everybody talking about it, but they… On the surface, yeah, it looks pretty bad, but there is more to this story, because we weren’t in the room. Pretty sure none of us were in the room. Of how that handled because it was… I don’t want to sit here and defend Sean’s honor. He can do it himself. The way I look at it is, as I’m watching this speech, my jaw’s hitting the floor and I go, “What in the fuck are you doing,” sitting there tickling balls or whatever you want to call it. And then he called him a tough… Trump a tough SOB, and I kind just went, “What the fuck?”

And then all of a sudden you see his demeanor change and he pivots to a fiery pro-worker, pro-labor speech, which was, if you actually listen to it, was very, very good, and I think every working person in America should hear. I get everybody’s viewpoint of he shouldn’t have been there. And was him not being invited to the DNC, was that a ruse? Because the way I look at it, he kind of Trojan horsed in there and dropped a labor speech on primetime TV in front of millions of viewers, which I think is… He didn’t have to knock the door down, they invited him with open arms. And I understand the optics of it, absolutely. It’s a bad look. I can’t disagree with that. But what he accomplished, he did say nobody has ever been invited… No labor leader has ever been invited to the Republican Convention. This is true. And he got invited. And now I get everybody’s hang up with that.

He did call out some Republican senator. But you’ve got to think about it. If you’re scraping the barrel and all you can come up with is Josh Hawley at his AFL-CIO score of 11%. I mean, he had to find something to praise somebody about. Because if they knew he was going to go in and drop that speech, I don’t think they would have let in at the door. So the way I look at it is, when he was there, he had to play the game, but when… For the last two thirds of the speech, he dropped some shit, he dropped some stuff people needed to hear. And if the Democratic Party was smart, they would have him go in, do that speech, and say, “Kick it up a few notches.” Because that’s what the American people need to hear. Will that happen? I don’t know. But the first time I watched it, I was a little kind of… I’ve watched it a couple times, and the more and more I look at it and when you start listening to what he’s saying, I’m like, “God damn, how did he get away with that?”

Because if I was a fly on the wall in that convention, people were elbowing each other going, “Who let this motherfucker in the room? And are we being punked?” Because nowhere would you ever expect to see that. So it was a surprise. I get it. We shouldn’t fraternize with those Republicans. I get it. But the thing is is he saw an opportunity that’s probably never going to happen again, because they ain’t going to let any labor leader through those doors ever again. So he went in there, dropped the bomb, it is what it is.

My opinion is 99.9% of America has already decided who they’re voting on from president. Yes, it can sway either way, but it’s going to be too close for comfort and he had to make a calculated decision. So I support what he did. That’s about the best I can explain it. Because the speech he made, if you actually listen to it and get past the hatred for the Republicans or Donald Trump, that speech was pretty fire, as the young kids say. So anyways, I’m going to leave it at that. And I will go into my union negotiations and hopefully be back, and you guys can all talk shit about me behind my back. So talk to you later.

Kat:

Yeah. Before I start, I’ll just give a little bit of an introduction as to who I am and where I’m coming from. As I mentioned, shop steward at UPS in Oakland under Local 70. Also, a proud member of Teamsters Mobilize, a small group of rank-and-file workers who are trying to organize and take action to advocate for pro-worker organization and policies within our union. And I am additionally a member of Maoist Communist Union, USA. I watched the whole video of Sean O’Brien’s speech, and as I watched, I had in my mind the conversations that I frequently take part in with coworkers on my shop floor who are all UPS part-timers, all part of this lower tier of workers within the UPS workforce who are paid far less, receive far less in wages and benefits than the rest of the UPS drivers, and are generally treated as sort of second class citizens within the UPS worker world.

And the vast majority of people, when I talk to them about the upcoming presidential elections, they tell me, “I don’t think either of those men is going to serve my interests. I don’t think much will change depending on who is president, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden.” And I think that that’s reflective of an objective truth that, for the majority of working people in this country, their overall quality of life is not so much dependent on which party is in power, but in the chaotic boom and bust economic cycle of the capitalist system in the inevitable cycle of war and relative peace that breaks out as different sections of the ruling class across the world duke it out for control over various territories and natural resources.

And so when I watched Sean O’Brien’s speech, I was not really watching it from a particular standpoint of thinking, “Oh, he’s crossed over to the dark side.” I think the Republicans and the Democrats, when you look at the grand scheme of history, have not done much, actually, at all to serve the interests of the working class people in this country. And I think there’s an interesting contrast between Rob’s view that Sean O’Brien kind of busted a Trojan horse into this convention versus Rick’s view that he was used as a pawn, and I’m excited to debate those two views together in this podcast. I don’t really agree with either of them. I think that Sean O’Brien made a calculated strategic move in seeing that the Republican Party is making some shifts towards trying to court the unions in this country based on broader developments that are happening in the economy, internationally as well as within the United States, and I think that there’s some specific parts of the speech that point towards that. So in the future questions, we can talk more about it.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Let’s dig into that, right? Because this has been really great so far, and I just appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and perspectives. And I hope that folks listening, this is as incredible for you as it is for us and I really hope you’re taking what everyone is saying to heart. Because as we know, if you listen to the show, the one thing that I hope you take away from it is that the working class is not one thing. We are the most diverse class, and it’s important that we have fora like this where we can talk amongst ourselves about what we, as a class, need to do and how we proceed in a way that benefits all of us. And that’s what we’re trying to model here.

And I think what I’m hearing from all of you is that, yeah, I mean, there was calculation that went into this. I mean, I am trying to think as a former conservative who grew up in a non-union family thinking many things about unions, this was not so long ago. But I can imagine to someone like me, to someone like the folks in my family who feel that way, seeing Sean O’Brien on that stage, just like seeing Chris Smalls on Tucker Carlson Tonight, it would put someone in front of me that did not exist in my orbit until then, and maybe even leave me with a more favorable impression of them and the union itself. I mean, I’ve been on Megyn Kelly’s show and got her to say she supported the Amazon Labor Union at the time. And as a former conservative, that excited me.

But then as I think y’all are really forcing us to ask is like, but what is that going to really mean beyond the rhetoric? What is it going to mean beyond just the sort of surface level understanding of a political discussion where we’ve got to kind of address the fact that, yeah, union members vote Republican, union members vote Democrat, union members don’t vote at all, right? So you’ve got to kind of work within that realm. But from the conversation in the first round, what I’m gleaning is that we’re really talking about, beyond the rhetoric, what is this going to mean for us on the shop floor? What is this going to mean for the economy and the plight of working people writ large? And what exactly does this portend if indeed Donald Trump becomes the next president and what Sean O’Brien was expressing hope for in that speech on Monday is really put to the test? We’re going to all find out what that means in our daily lives. And that’s where I want to hit on with this second question, right?

I want to bring this down to eye level, to the shop floor level, and ask, what implications does this have for you all as union members and workers in your day-to-day lives, the folks that you work with and care about? And yeah, I mean, what does this kind of approach that O’Brien is taking… Which we should mention is not representative of the labor movement writ large. Mel and I were just listening to Shawn Fain of the UAW speak last week at Netroots here in Baltimore. His speech was markedly different from Sean O’Brien’s speech to the RNC, and we’ll try to link to that as well so you guys can compare.

But yeah, let’s go back at around the table again and talk about what the implications here are for you all and your fellow workers on the shop floor level at the basic level of living your lives and achieving a comfortable life with dignity. Where do you think that this approach that O’Brien is trying to take, not endorsing either party, trying to kind of thread a bipartisan, more independent labor needle here, what do you think that means for our movement? Amber, let’s toss it back to you.

Amber Mathwig:

Big loaded questions tonight, Max, very important. For the folks at home, we did not get them pre-written, so really going off the cuff here. Yeah, that’s a really great setup to continue this conversation there, Max, because you just have my brain all over the place thinking about… I have all these big picture what’s going to happen as you’re talking, and the first thing I’m thinking about is, again, going back to what I said earlier, I believe, is that the labor movement that Josh Hawley wants, that J. D. Vance wants, that Donald Trump just wants to control the profits of, they want that movement for white Christian men.

And so to, again, see Sean O’Brien kind of cozying up to that with this nationalist idea in place, we can all… Yeah, you can carry that out together, and it’s a really good plan if it was for everybody. But when you contrast it against Project 2025, what we know from Trump’s last administration, that he has not calmed down his rhetoric, that he can probably do whatever he wants now and people are just going to support it unequivocally. And we already know that we’re losing Democratic progressive seats coming this fall. And so to even think about what’s going to happen to some of the most disaffected workers, our immigrant brothers and sisters and comrades in those areas, it’s going to completely shift how our entire labor movement is going. It’s going to bring back… I don’t think they’re going to bring back labor. Why would they do that? That’s going to mess with all these other plans that they have.

But let me bring it back down to my level. One of the great benefits that I have just really enjoyed having for the last two years as a union member is that they can’t fire me for my personality. I’m very outspoken. And when I know that I can advocate for myself at work because I’m protected from being fired for doing that, and then to think that, “Oh, the head of the Teamsters union basically doesn’t think that I should be here at all through inclusion, diversity, equity, making sure that LGBTQ are safe.” And then I immediately shift to our joint council, Joint Council 32, shout out, hosted a pride booth. Not just a booth, it was a double booth. So for two days, it was two weeks ago, and we’re one of the few unions to actually have a booth set up. And I just heard so many positive responses from people of all ages just to see us there.

I did have some people asking if Teamsters are going to endorse Trump. And into my head I’m like, “I don’t know,” because we just did this stupid straw poll that apparently has no precedent, so I think he really is trying to get support to endorse Trump. And so in thinking about… We’re putting all this effort into making sure that queer people and people who support our community know that they are also welcome in the union, to read the history and to know how many… I’m sorry. Now my dog is dying next to me. I just realized how loud she was. You can leave that in, Jules, just don’t make me sound like a bad mother. Bebe, [inaudible 00:48:56]. I’ll finish my rant later.

Tony:

To Rick’s point, I might use it in a different way. I think our union leaders have for too long been the show ponies of the Democratic Party who have tried to court the unions for votes and for public support for a very long time, while working actually against their interests, the interests of the workers in those unions. Something I think that needs to be highlighted here is that we need working class political independents. We need our unions to take the lead on breaking from these alliances with the Democrats and the Republicans where our union leaders are used as pawns in games for election season and working people are left behind. What I heard from O’Brien’s speech is that, whether it’s the Democratic Party or the Republican Party in power, that Sean O’Brien is ready to play ball with whoever.

So what does this mean for workers on the ground and on the shop floor, as you asked? I’m one of the UPS Teamster part-timers who got included in this new part-timer tier of lower paid part-time workers at UPS that had Carol Tome singing the praises of this contract and this negotiations for the shareholder. So I think we’re going to see more of the same. I think we’re going to see more backroom deals veiled behind the illusion of union reform. Let’s remember that Sean O’Brien ran on a reform ticket where he promised that we would have open bargaining and transparent bargaining. But during the 2023 UPS negotiations, everything was behind closed doors. The whole bargaining committee was made to sign non-disclosure agreements in direct violation of the campaign promise. So I think we’re going to see more sellout contracts as O’Brien struts around as a union fighter and a champion of the working class. I think we’re going to see him be a show pony for either party now.

Chantelle:

Yeah. I would agree with that. I think… I didn’t mention this on the last question, which was about what have conversation’s been like on the shop floor? And what Kat said about her coworkers is very similar to my coworkers, which is that I asked people… So when there was the debate, which was kind of an incredible thing to watch for many reasons. Also, just because it was like, after that point, all these people in the media and the Democratic Party who had been saying, “Biden’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong,” after that were forced to say, “Okay, there’s something wrong.” But setting that debate aside, I asked my coworkers, did they watch it? “No.” I mean, like a few, but they’re a very, very small minority.

And yeah, likewise with Sean O’Brien speaking at the RNC. People knew there was an assassination attempt on Trump, but in general, people really… They’ve said what Kat said her coworkers have said, which is just, it doesn’t really matter. They don’t care. They have all this talk. Both parties will choose certain issues where they say, “Oh, look, the Democrats don’t care about you in X, Y, Z way, but the Republican Party will be there for you.” Look how bad the economy has been under Biden, which is objectively true. And so actually that’s the main reason why I have a few coworkers… I was talking to a coworker the other day and she is an immigrant from Central America, and she was like, “I think Trump is probably the way to go because look how horrible the situation is under Biden.”

So I also think, as somewhat of a sidebar, it’s pretty important that people aren’t… Not saying people here in this virtual room, but just broadly, aren’t painting all Trump voters with the same brush. Because I think there are so many people who have become totally disillusioned with the Democratic Party and how it’s really betrayed the working class people, how it’s betrayed Black people, immigrants. And because it’s so drilled into us that any kind of political party, any kind of political action, has to be either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. So when people have just been betrayed by the Democratic Party, then they think, “Okay, maybe the Republican Party.” And then we’ll see that again. And that’s kind of like what we see, I feel, every election season.

But to go back to my original point, I think, yeah, the vast majority of my coworkers feel like they’re just struggling. That, especially, just to say right now, it’s over 90 degrees in the warehouse and it’s hard work. We’re, in general, getting fewer hours. People can see also when we do talk about what’s going on internationally, how much money and weapons the US is sending to Ukraine, to Israel to bomb Gaza. All these things people feel, I think, rightly, very upset about and do see the overall unity of the Democratic and Republican parties on these main topics. So that’s all to say, of course there’s going to be different things that, if Trump wins, which I think, based on what’s happening in the society, it seems quite likely that he’ll win. Of course, there’s going to be attacks on the working class, which we’ll have to oppose, which we’ll have to fight against. But that would happen under a Biden presidency as well, or they end up going with another nominee. But I’ll stop there.

Rick Smith:

I would love to live in a perfect world where we all had the same ideas and we were all moving in the same direction. I look at O’Brien and I think he’s reading the tea leaves of the union. That we’re a legacy union with a lot of people… I look at myself, I work in a place where there’s a lot of old straight white guys who they would be okay with a anti woke union, because all they care about is putting food on their table and a roof over their heads. They want to go to work and have the job that we had back when I started. I started back in the late ’80s. The freight job was a gold standard job. Now, it’s reasonable. And they’ve seen that loss of power over the years, and this idea, I used it say it all the time, a drowning man will grab an anchor if you throw it to him. And we’re in that kind of situation. The Democrats have been less bad. There’s no question about it. Every bit of bipartisanship that Sean says he wants has gone against working people. I talked about the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which was true bipartisanship. Thirteen members in the house voted against it, 70 Senators voted for it. A Democratic Senator signed it into law because it was going to help consumers. It was supposed to help our fuel problems. It was supposed to help all of this stuff, but it fucked over the entire freight industry in this country.

And what we ended up with is what was a solidly middle-class job, in most cases, being a sweatshop on wheels. So I understand the anger and everyone has their issue. I keep saying the labor movement should be the place where we reunite this country, where we come together and we fight for these ideas and attempt to go after and be a more perfect union.

But for me, the political system that we have is the one you have to play in. Would I love to have a different one? Sure. But that’s going to take us. If you’ve got a broken government, if you’ve got broken legislative branches, you’ve got broken society and broken people because we can’t seem to agree on what we want. So I asked the question, how did Sean O’Brien go from marching in the street with Bernie Sanders to sucking up to a wannabe dictator?

Had we gone into the streets more and pulled people into this movement and instead of having 6% private sector union density, have the 22% union density that when I started, or the 35% union density that we had when my grandparents were around. Had we that then you have political power. We’re holding on to little bits and pieces of it because most voters, and this is the sad reality, most voters, the union endorsement doesn’t seem to matter.

I remember when I first started, a business agent would walk into the lunchroom and he’d throw it out a leaflet and say, “This is who we’re supporting,” and everyone would pick one up because they knew that that union had their best interest in mind. You walk into my lunchroom right now and you say, “We’re supporting Joe Biden or the Democrats,” you better know where the exit is because you’re probably not going to get out of there. And this has been decades in the making. But for me, I look at this second, Joe Biden has done some really good things, especially for the Teamsters. The fact that he bailed out, which was the number one legislative priority of the Teamsters, was to shore up the Multi-Employer Pension Fund, passed the Butch Lewis Act, and ensure that retirees are able to retire.

Biden did that. Trump didn’t do it. Obama didn’t do it. Biden did it.

And the loyalty and the thank you that he got was what we saw. O’Brien went and everyone here just said, “Both sides suck. The system sucks.” Well, it’s the only one we’ve got right now. I don’t see anything changing. So for me, it’s about encouraging our co-workers and encouraging our friends and neighbors, yeah, pick a side, but maybe pick better people to run. Maybe to run yourself. This is what the Republicans have done and you have to give them credit.

I go back to a guy named Ralph Reed. He was the head of the Moral Majority or whatever the hell their name was. He was asked how they built their ecosystem and he pulled out the SWOC handbook, the Steelworkers Organizing Committee handbook, and said, this is how we did it. We talked to people, we got into the churches, we got into their spaces, and we organized. This is what we should be doing. You got issues? We need to be organizing. And that’s where I would’ve preferred Sean O’Brien to spend his time.

I mean, in three minutes, I can’t go through everything there, but at the end of the day, the Republicans and the people in that convention hall have been the ones who have done an awful lot of damage. Democrats haven’t been a lot of help, but the Republicans are the ones holding the noose around our neck. So that’s where I’m going to leave it.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

Yeah, I think coming back to how it is on the shop floor is I had a conversation this morning about the election, and most people that I talked to about this election really are either apathetic or… They’re not diehard one way or another. And there definitely are diehards, and I think the people watching the Republican National Convention are diehard Republicans. And so if Sean O’Brien really wants to give a speech to diehard Republicans, that seems like the kind of speech he was trying to give in terms of appealing to America first and trying to tie in the union politics to America first.

But I think that as a union, we really should be focusing on the majority of Americans who don’t vote or don’t really prefer one candidate or the other. Even among people who support either Trump or Biden, probably are not enthusiastic supporters one way or another.

And so going to the RNC and him taking this middle-of-the-road approach, to me, I feel like it does more damage to associate ourselves as a union with these political parties that Americans already are angry at. And I’ve been involved in a number of organizing campaigns, and one thing I hear a lot is, especially in North Carolina where a lot of people have no experience with unions, really don’t know much about them, I hear, “Oh, this is a political thing.” It’s like, “Well, no, not quite.”

They see it as we’re involved in some sort of government election, and I have to explain, “No, a union is about you and your coworkers coming together to demand change and demand better in the workplace and demand better as workers, period.” And I really would like for us as a union to get back to those independent politics. I think it’s disingenuous for Sean O’Brien to say that we’re taking this middle-road, bipartisan approach. Instead, we’re dipping our hands into both political parties.

I’m not a fan of Biden, definitely not a fan of Trump. I think that’s true for a lot of people. But going back to what Rick said, it’s Republicans that are strangling us. North Carolina still has a Jim Crow law on the books that prevents public sector bargaining for Republican employees. And Republicans have a super-majority in the legislature here, and not one Republican supports getting rid of that Jim Crow law.

And so for me, it makes it harder for me to talk to folks and talk about the issues surrounding local issues. If we have somebody at the top of our union leadership that is essentially giving a check mark to those Republicans instead of talking with them, I’ve got no problem talking with Republican co-workers or co-workers that are more conservative. And I think we should be doing that and figuring out how we can have those common issues and how we can have those conversations where we can talk through these things. Because generally, I feel like people are receptive to that kind of thing.

But when we’re talking to a room full of politicians that are cheerleading Donald Trump, that’s a whole other Republican, then somebody that supports Republicans.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, so being a shop floor leader means standing up against the company, fighting back against contract violations. The one good thing about having a contract is that it is in black and white. It says what they can and they cannot do. If you don’t have a contract, you don’t even have that. Essentially, a company can do whatever they want. If it’s not a direct violation of a law, they can do as they please. They can pull stuff out of the air, do one thing one day, another day, something else a different day. Just make up the rules as they go. Having a contract, having it on paper in black and white, that is an advantage.

Does the company follow it? A lot of times they don’t, but at least you have that. You have that to refer to. You have that to stand behind and you can push back against the company. Outside of that, having the support of your members, having the support of a fellow steward, having the support of your business agent, your local president, and then even beyond that, like we talked about, the NLRB, the National Labor and Relations Board. You can go to them. You can file charges against the company through them.

If your union was to not support you, you can bring charges against your union. We know that Trump wants to disband the NLRB. He wants to put in people that are not going to protect the rights of workers, like Joe Biden added people that were more pro-union. We have a better NLRB than we had under Trump. And that gives people more confidence to take on those issues on the shop floor, to know that they have law in place behind them and not empty law. Laws that will ultimately be upheld and carried out. We probably won’t get those things under Trump. That’s going to change the conditions on your shop floor. If people know that there’s nobody to back them up, how are they going to feel confident enough to stand up to the bosses?

How are they going to feel confident enough to stand up for their fellow co-worker when they see these wrongdoings happening? That can have huge implications for being able to change your workplace conditions for it to be a safe workplace. Our companies put us in unsafe situations all the time, every single day. We already have to fight that now. Imagine having less protections than we already do. That’s regression. We’ve been regressing for many years. We’ve been losing little more, little more, little more, little more. We’re not trying to straddle the road and play both sides. We’re trying to actually regain so much of what we lost. You can’t do that by playing footsie with the Democrats and the Republicans.

Neither one of them are here to truly serve the interest of the people. And I understand people who want to vote either way. Everybody’s struggling to survive.

People see that it’s bad under Biden. A lot of people have the mindset of can’t really be any worse under Trump. It actually can be worse under Trump, but so many things are so bad that people don’t see the harm and like, “Well, let’s somebody else.” And we only have these two options, right? So like, “Well, this guy’s been awful, so let’s try this guy.”

O’Brien has an opportunity. He has a platform to stand on and really influence the Teamster members and not just the Teamster members, other union members, other non-union members, other workers. He needs to take that opportunity to educate the members, teach the members how exactly neither the Democrats nor the Republicans or serving the interests of the people. Start growing that idea that we have to form another party. We need a Labor Party. Is that going to happen overnight? No, but start getting that message, that narrative out.

Somebody mentioned, “Get in the streets, get in the churches, get in the community, talk to people.” The majority of Americans are low-income and middle-income people. Those people are not being engaged with. They’re not being educated. They’re not being taught. Take them under your wing, and help open their eyes and help them see that there is a path forward. Put hope into people’s hearts, not just having to choose the lesser of two evils that we’ve been doing for so long.

Create hope. May not happen tomorrow. Maybe it’s hope that we leave for our children, but we leave for the next generation to leave it better than we have found because all it’s done is gone downhill while most of us have been involved. And all these two parties that we have in place, they’re propping up capitalism, the elite. They’re propping up the people and the system who exist to exploit and tear down the working class to extract as much value as possible by any means necessary. Everybody’s dealing with that. Anybody in the working class can see. No matter what industry you’re in, most places are they have too much work, the amount of people to do it.

And it’s frustrating day in, day out, and people are sick of that, but neither party is going to help change that. Too many people are influenced by money and power and their own personal opportunity, but that’s not what’s good for people. That’s not what’s good for our country. That’s not what’s going to help change the path that we’re on. And as long as we keep choosing the lesser of two evils, we’re going to continue down the same road that we’ve been going on, whether that’s a Republican or a Democrat. We have to change the whole system to make real progress. And O’Brien has the opportunity to begin those changes and lay that foundation so that we have hope for a better future.

Kat:

Really well said, Jess. It’s a side comment that’s not really responding to this question so much, but I was talking to a coworker the other day about the debate that had happened, and he was like, “Man, my dad used to tell me we have to choose the lesser of the two evils, but I look at these two guys and I don’t even think one of them is less evil than the other.” So I think that’s where a lot of my people at UPS are at.

But to get back to this question at hand, Max, you had asked about the implications of Sean O’Brien’s rhetoric at this speech for people at the shop floor level. And I’d like to focus on this one particular quote that really stood out for me in the speech. He was listing a bunch of demands, so to speak, to the Republican Party, and one of them was we need trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier to keep businesses in America. Trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier to keep businesses in America.

So what the hell is he actually talking about? Well, he’s talking about some major strategic shifts that the ruling class in this country is making right now in their attempts to decrease their economic dependence on the country of China in the face of increasing competition, both economically and politically between the ruling classes of America and China.

And to be clear, I don’t think that the working people of our country are enemies with the working people of China. I think that we actually are part of one international proletarian class, and we need to stand in solidarity with the general masses of China. But it is a fact that the ruling classes between the US and China are increasingly competitive to the point of possibly ultimately turning into a third world war. But we’re not quite there yet. Nevertheless, the capitalists in this country are going to have to make some changes in order to not be so dependent on China anymore.

In order to do that, they’re going to have to make a number of changes to how they’re operating currently. But two changes that are going to especially have an impact on people at the shop floor level is one, they’re going to have to impose a lot higher tariffs on things being imported from China.

And two, they’re going to have to build a lot more industrial production facilities in this country as well as maybe in other countries that aren’t China. But there will be some re-industrialization happening in this country in the next few decades because of these shifts that they have to make. And on the one hand, this will lead to a larger number of jobs being created in this country, and as trade unionists, as leftists, et cetera, we’re not opposed to job creation. But what we are opposed to is that happening entirely on the terms of the ruling class. And if given their way, of course, they will always carry these plans out in a way that serves their interest entirely. And I think that one of the things that they see from their perspective is, okay, we’re going to have to actually corral a lot of people, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of workers into these new sites of industrial production, and we’re going to have to figure out a way to keep them under control.

And one way that they will be able to do that is by courting the unions, by trying to establish very cozy relationships with some of the highest-level leadership of those unions. And by cutting slimy deals like the ones that Tony described between the leadership of the Teamsters and the UPS executives in last summer’s UPS contract. So in addition to the need to increase industrial production, there’s also this factor of needing to establish new and different relationships with the unions. And I think that that’s a big part of what we’re seeing with Sean O’Brien speaking at this Republican National Convention.

And I kind of disagree with some of the panelists who said, oh, this was just a one-off thing. We’re never going to see it again. Sean O’Brien blew it out of the water, and there’s going to be no more chances. I do think that we’re going to see this pattern continuing throughout time.

On the flip side of increasing production, increasing tariffs and restricting trade from other countries is going to lead to further inflation. And I think to be realistic, Trump is pushing for these things to happen at a faster rate than Biden or the Democrats. And so that is a concrete distinction in the way that he’s approaching things and he’s putting forward a clearer strategy for it that he sees as being most advantageous for the ruling class.

But to loop this back around to the original Sean O’Brien quote, we need to be clear that these trade policies are not putting American workers first. These trade policies are being crafted and executed in the interests of the ruling class, and they will try to throw us a few crumbs. They will try to use fancy phrases like this to convince us that it’s in our interest to go along with whatever their plan is.

But in reality, it’s going to be the same as it always has been, which is that we need to fight for every inch of better wages and working conditions, every inch of not being controlled by people in our unions who are in bed with the capitalists and the politicians, and that’s never going to come without a struggle. So these are some examples of ways that I see the speech that Sean O’Brien gave relating directly to the lives of working class people in this country in the near and midterm future.

Mel Buer:

Great. Thank you so much everyone for such a cool range of conversation here. We’re going to kind of bring it back around to just final reflections. So I’ll just ask this question. What are your final thoughts on what this means for the election and labor’s relation to electoral politics?

And I know some of you have already sort of touched on this in past responses, but yeah, what are your final thoughts for rounding out this incredible panel?

Amber Mathwig:

I don’t want to miss an opportunity to remind everybody that it is the 90th anniversary of the beautiful strike-filled summer of 1934, and I’m here in Minneapolis as part of that. We don’t like adding any words to the end because we can’t agree on them.

Part of the people making sure that the past is remembered, and literally one of the associated art exhibits is called 1934 & Now. How do the labor struggles of 1934 relate to what we’re dealing with now? And in 1934, the truckers, drivers, and helpers union did not have approval of Teamster leadership to go on strike. They did not have approval kind of to do a lot of things.

And one of the things that always sticks with me, and I was trying to find it while I was waiting, was one of the initial things that Teamsters were not interested in were organizing part-timers, and a lot of us here are part-timers. And I think that says something about why we are so strong on what we’re saying. And another reason why it didn’t surprise me that Sean O’Brien was willing to throw everybody under the bus is because once again, leadership has decided that the power comes from the top down when it doesn’t.

And that no matter what happens with Sean O’Brien, I think we should honor his request to go back to driving as soon as possible. No matter what happens in the election, if we still have a semi-functioning country and company shortly after that, we need to take back that power. And we need to get people interested in not just filing grievances, but asserting the fact that we make this company run every single day.

They’re coming up on, well, at my facility anyways, we’re going on to phase two of automation. First thing they want to do is take away our music. You can’t hear the beep, beep, beep. That’s what I used to call the wrist thing if you have headphones in. But really it’s because they want to control us. They want to make us miserable. They want to have fuck ups that they can blame on people, and that’s why they need machines. And that’s a whole nother episode for us, Max, if we want to talk about AI implementation and preload. But that this is what he’s cozying up to is people trying to do away, people trying to constantly force workers to be reset, so you’re at the lowest wage, so you have to work more so that you’re more stressed and that you don’t have time to organize.

I’m fortunate that I can make ends meet as a slightly above part-timer with some few odds and end jobs and sharing cost of living with some other people, but even that time that I have doesn’t feel enough sometimes because we don’t have time on the shop floor. We don’t. We are so exhausted and run wild right now and for the past several weeks that most of these conversations are happening in the parking lot or over text message, and therefore they’re not reaching enough people. It’s the people that have already gravitated towards or that have gravitated towards me, that we’re having these conversations about how to make our union stronger, about how to deal with all of these changes that are coming up.

And that again, feel like Sean O’Brien’s ready to sell us all out for his own ego. And that may be a reason that we need to question the way that the hierarchy of the Teamsters is set up because we can’t seem to get away from this corrupt Teamster boss thing. At some point, we got to figure out that concentrating all of the power in one person is not going to lead us to stability and gains in the labor workforce. And I think that was good. So I’m just going to stop right there. Lovely to be here with you all again.

Tony:

Yeah, thanks for those thoughts, Amber. As Rick brought up, union density in the US has been shrinking for decades, and in the midst of the economic and political shift that Tamra was talking about. The only way that the working class is going to defend itself and expand its power economically and politically is if we call a spade a spade and see behind the rhetoric of a union leader like Sean O’Brien, who talks big talk about taking on corporate elites while shaking their hands in closed-door meetings and leaving Teamster workers and the whole working class in the dust.

So I think a key task for the Working Class Movement is to expose this betrayal, because this is not working class political independence that we’re seeing in this speech. This is class collaborationism of a different form than what we’ve seen in the last couple decades with the previous loyalty to the Democratic Party.

This is why this struggle for against class collaboration in our unions is so vital. For all those Teamsters listening to this podcast, I encourage you to come attend our next Teamsters Mobilize meeting. We’re going to be talking about the presidential election campaign. Go to our website at teamstersmobilize.com and sign up to come talk about how we can build working class political independence and struggle against these fraud union leaders.

Chantelle:

Yeah, I think in terms of final reflections, well, I think it’s been a great conversation tonight, and it’s just really important that we do take the time to have these types of conversations, of course, in the election year, but also more broadly, because I think, I know, we’re all quite busy on the shop floor and in our locals and organizing with our coworkers. There’s a lot to deal with on the day-to-day, a lot of harassment, a lot of just trying to get our coworkers to be engaged and to fight back and to not let a supervisor just beat you down.

But it is so important that we do step back, also, to think more broadly, like how do we actually address the issues that we’re facing, that the working class is facing, well, in this country, but in every country. I think what Sean O’Brien was really, one of the things he was saying in his speech… I mean, Tom said is true. What Sean O’Brien is doing is class collaborationism, but O’Brien doesn’t even talk about classes in that speech. What he talks about… First of all, he says the workers. He never says there’s actually a working class, but he talks about the corporates and the elites and the big banks and big tech, and the way he describes them is as if there’s some bad capitalists, like those people he’s just described, but then also good capitalists, who know to actually work with the workers hand-in-hand and to advance the same single interest, whatever it may be.

In this case, this is really obviously pushing U.S. nationalism and saying that there’s the shared interest of getting more jobs back to the U.S. and we’ll work together to do that. But I think it’s just really important that we do take a step back. We do see the fact that we, as a class, have certain interests that we have to fight for that we in no way can actually advance that fight by just working with and collaborating with and having trust in and belief in the capitalists, whether or not they’re the ones that are running the companies that we work at or that are running these various political parties or the big banks and the media, et cetera.

We really have to find an independent way forward. I know different people have talked about that today, that we do need political independence, that eventually we need to build the formation of a Labor Party. I think earlier it was Rick, maybe, talking about… He said this is a broken system. It’s a bad system. We need a new system. I’d love to live in a new system, but this is what we’ve got right now, and we can’t be idealistic and say that we’re going to be able to build a totally new society tomorrow, but I do think our fight and our discussion within the Working Class Movement today really should be aimed at thinking about how can we get to the point where we do build enough unity in the working class, where we do build enough clarity and strength where we can have a revolution, have a totally new society where actually the working class is in power.

We’re told all the time that that’s so impossible. I think, obviously, it’s in the capitalist class’s interest for us to feel like that’s impossible, for us to feel… Like my coworker said that, I think, yesterday. She said, “I’d love to have a revolution, but that’s never going to work. That’s never worked. People are too selfish. People don’t want to fight. I try to fight here at UPS and people won’t.”

I know a lot of people do have a lot of experience where you try something and it doesn’t work, and it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, in a sense, but I think, like Amber was saying, to really draw from the history from 90 years ago and draw from the history of the entire Working Class Movement in this country and around the world, I do have a lot of hope. We’re kind of going back to the beginning. Max, you were saying you’re feeling a little mixed up about the overall situation. Yeah, of course there’s a lot of bad things going on in this society. There’s a lot of darkness, but I do feel a lot of hope. I do feel like working people want to find the way forward. It’s kind of a tortuous road, but I’m confident that we’ll find it. We’ll walk upon it, and we’ll be able to live in a new kind of society.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, so I would say my final reflections is that we need to work towards teaching people. A lot of people have the mindset that, “Oh, politics isn’t something that I need to worry about. It doesn’t really apply to me,” because they see politics as just something on Capitol Hill. While that is true, these the people that are creating the laws and the policies that affect our everyday lives.

Everybody has things that they want to see changed. That’s politics. Anything that you want to see changed is inherently political, because there are forces that don’t want to see those things changed, and those people are using resources and policies and their influence to make sure that they don’t.

Most people are controlled by fear. On the shop floor, people are scared to fight back for fear that they will be retaliated against or even fired. It keeps people in line, and to go even further, people are scared that they’ll lose more rights if they really stand up and push back, that things could get even worse, but they are. Little by little, we are losing more and more rights, more and more control, more and more freedoms. We have to push past that fear, and the way forward is to not let that fear keep you from doing what you need to do to have your part in making sure that those changes come to fruition.

Don’t be fearful. Be bold. Be assertive. By doing that and letting other people see you do that, it sparks. It encourages other people. I can stand up like that, too, and anybody can do it. Even if you’ve never done it before, anybody can have a part in bringing about that change. Maybe that’s what you need. Maybe that’s what your coworker needs is to see you standing up and to be bold and saying, “I can do that, too. That person’s doing good things. I can do good things.”

Nobody is too small. Everybody can have a part, and it’s going to take everybody. We’re all going to have to come together to fight for the common interest and really move this country forward, and it’s not going to be through the Republicans or the Democrats.

Like I said, Sean O’Brien, he had the opportunity to do that, and he has failed. He has failed to do that, and he is riding the line. That is not going to push labor forward.

Kat:

Amber, I’m so glad that you brought up the fact that it’s the 90th anniversary of the General Strike Wave of 1934 in this country. For listeners who aren’t familiar with the history, I highly encourage, go find your favorite labor history book and read about it.

In short, during the middle months of the year 1934, at the bottom of the Great Depression, at a time when there was no unemployment insurance, there was no Social Security, there was no real well-established legal rights to unionize, millions of workers in this country, the lowest paid, least skilled workers, who all of the union leaders had said can’t be organized, shouldn’t be organized, we shouldn’t even try to organize these people in the unions, rose up, went on strikes that spanned across many different workplaces, across entire industries, and ultimately won a lot of concessions from the ruling class that are not to be taken for granted, that we still can leverage today to our advantage. I think I see this, these historical facts as evidence and proof that the people will rise up when the time comes. The people will be ready to fight when the time comes.

The question is, for those of us who see a longer trajectory for the Labor Movement, beyond winning a few concessions, what is our plan? Of course, we’re not at that point right now, where millions of workers in this country are spontaneously rising up and going on strike. We all know that. We’ve all experienced frustrations and feelings like our coworkers are apathetic, but if we ourselves see a basis to be able to provide leadership when that time comes in the midst of a period of crisis, I think that what we need to do now is really find others who see things in the same way, get together, and study history; study theory; make a plan; try to consolidate ourselves ideologically; try to, of course, get involved in our unions, if there is one; learn about the landscape; learn about the contradictions amongst the people; and acquire lots of practical knowledge, as well.

But we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that we can just build a fire as one or two or five or ten people. The fire is going to spark off at some point, and what we need to do is prepare ourselves, strengthen ourselves as leaders, whether that’s on the shop floor or at a national scale, and instill in ourselves confidence in the people themselves. For those who are feeling angry, perturbed, confused, upset, don’t even know how you feel about Sean O’Brien speaking at the Republican National Convention, I hope that at least these more general and broader reaching thoughts can maybe make you sit down and think a little bit, because ultimately everything that seems unusual or confusing or unprecedented in our society, we can figure out ways to understand it. We can figure out ways to fight against it. We have to get organized. We have to educated ourselves, and we have to stand in solidarity with those that will fight alongside us one day. Over and out.

Rick Smith:

Ultimately, no one’s going to remember what Sean O’Brien said. They’re going to remember that he was there. That’s my problem with the platform in which he chose to give this speech. I thought the speech, in most other venues, two thirds of it was great. The fact that he went to that event, knowing that ultimately it’s about getting Donald Trump elected, means that you knew what you were getting into.

We can argue whether it was the right thing, wrong thing. If you were talking to the larger audience and the TV audience and will they remember that union speech, that you have to find out. Ultimately, it’s my view that Trump knew what he wanted, and he got a major union to come in and say nice things about him. That is what is going to be used from now to the election time. Everything else, I don’t have any personal attacks against anybody. I just think strategically it was a bad move, and I think strategically it’s going to be something that is going to end up hurting Biden or whomever the Democrats put forth, but ultimately hurting the members and hurting the union, because if Trump gets elected, they’ve already told us what they’ve done, they want to do.

It’s written down in Project 2025, and they have a whole labor section about how they want to do away with prevailing wage and screw up the NLRA. There’s so much that can happen, and maybe we need it. Maybe we need bad things to happen to get us to come back together. I don’t know. But I do know if Trump is reelected, it’s going to be a dark four years. Thank you so much.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

One thing that really stuck with me the most isn’t the speech itself. It was Sean O’Brien doubling down the next day, reposting the Hawley article, and reposting that trans-phobic text of that article and praising Hawley as the one in good conservative, pro-labor conservative, while throwing trans teamsters like myself under the bus. It’s just really disappointing to see.

I’m not necessarily surprised, unfortunately, just for Sean O’Brien’s own political calculus on when he runs again. He probably cares more about republican Teamsters than he does about trans Teamsters. That’s just unfortunate reality of it. I think, ultimately, I agree a lot with what Rick says is that folks are just going to remember that he was there, and it’s just going to hurt the Teamsters more than anything else. It’s going to hurt the members of the Teamsters. It’s going to hurt if Trump is elected. It’s going to hurt organizing campaigns that are ongoing. I think we have seen that some staffers within the IBT are upset. One had posted that rogue post on social media, because they have to deal a lot, like these in the organizing campaigns, with the laws in various states, and in republican-run states, labor laws are way worse. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I think it’s an important thing to talk about, especially between Teamsters and how we can move forward, because we want to build a stronger union, and we need to hold our leadership accountable to do that.

Robert Conklin:

Yeah, I’ve never been more disenchanted about a national election as this one, because the two choices we were given are not ideal by any means. In a perfect world, we’d have a Labor Party, right? Made up of working people that actually could express what the working people in the United States need.

A hot, weird take on this one, but Sean O’Brien did walk into the Republican Convention and do a fiery labor speech. What if this is setting up the groundwork for a Labor Party. This is what people aren’t understanding is my conservative friends, my working class people that I’m friends with and talk to, all said they loved Sean O’Brien’s speech. A lot of those people aren’t really hip to the politics. They don’t care, but they’ve heard the speech, and they go, “You know what? That dude spoke to me.”

I know it’s not under ideal circumstances. I get it. But touching on some of the stuff that people said, bringing up the 1934 Minneapolis strike, the last really labor friendly president we had was Franklin Roosevelt, did wonders for working people. We haven’t had the power to shut down the country, if we were talking about the rail strike or whatever just recently.

Coming out of the pandemic and everything, I understand why the negotiations were postponed and there was compromises made, because as we were healing as a nation, coming out of the pandemic, a rail strike wasn’t a great time, and I mean to tell you, if it did happen, the view on labor would not be so hot with the average, ordinary American person. Yeah, sure, I would’ve thought it was great, but most people would be like, “After we just went through all of this, you guys are going to shut down the country?” I think the timing was bad.

1970 Wildcat Strike, a lot of you were probably familiar with that. Well, my grandfather was actually a part of that and shut the shit down. It was pretty hot, but we haven’t had a strong labor leader that’s been able to rally three million Teamsters, or how many we were members at the time. I hear a lot of people commenting, “It sounds like they’re unhappy with the UPS contract.” The contract before that one was a lot worse. I know that had a two-tiered system, the 22.4’s. That guy, I mean, 350,000 Teamsters under a UPS contract, you’re not going to make everybody happy. I get it. But the thing we’re missing is 70% of the fucking membership voted for it, so squeaky wheel, I get it, but this is democracy. This is the compromise and people were okay with it. They signed off of it. Don’t blame it on other people. You know, 70% is not a… It wasn’t close.

With the election, like I said, I’m looking at both choices, going, “God help us.” I think it’s like these are the two best people we have in the United States? Pretty much, a lot of us would agree, if we can get rid of them both and just start fresh and draw two names out of the hat, I think a lot of people would go for that.

To say the Democrats have been historically labor friendly, but what I tell my friends is there’s one party that says they’re for organized labor and there’s one party that’s vehemently against organized labor, but the thing is, what actually are they doing for labor? We’re in a kind of, as working people, in a shitty position. I would love to see a third party. That would balance the scales, but this is the shit hand we’re dealt with in the United States right now.

I’ll tell you right now, Sean O’Brien himself could have me a headlock, telling me, “You have two choices. Vote for Donald Trump or Satan,” and I’d be voting for the morning star, if you get what I mean. But the thing is, look at the other choice. I’m like, yes, he might be the most pro-labor president. He has his flaws. I get it.

Like I said, I’m disenchanted, but the thing is, bashing Sean O’Brien for going in there, into the lion’s den and shitting all over the white rug and smearing his feet, putting his muddy cowboy boots on the couch, if you know what I mean, people don’t see it, because they’re either blinded by their hatred for the Republicans, blinded by their hatred for Sean O’Brien, blinded from their hatred for Trump. But the thing is, something unprecedented happened a few days ago that I’m… Sure, I’m not a big Sean O’Brien fanboy, but I do give credit where credit is due, because if you put the first one third of the speech aside and listen to the second two thirds, that’s what everybody wants to hear. The thing is, it was just in a very strange, unsuspecting venue. But if I was a big corporation and throwing a pizza party for my employees and telling them how unions are no good, that’s a captive audience.

What did Sean O’Brien just do? He held a captive audience at the Republican fucking Convention. Well, love it or hate it, it is what it is. Now it’s time for the Democrats to tell him to get in there. Do that again, but do it even better. If that doesn’t happen, I don’t know what to tell you. Anyways, it’s been fun, guys. It’s been a great time. Well, I have knots in my stomach for what’s coming in November, because God help us all. Thank you very much.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week. I want to thank all of our amazing Teamster guests calling in from across the country, for taking time out of their busy schedules to be on this panel and share their vital thoughts and perspectives. I really, really appreciate you guys.

I want to thank the great Mel Buer for co-hosting with me. Like we said in the episode, Mel and I want to and are planning to do more of these kinds of panels through the election season and beyond. We want to keep talking to more folks, union and nonunion, and getting more perspectives. We want you guys to reach out to us. Let us know what you thought of this panel and send us your suggestions for folks you want us to talk to in future panels and topics that you want us to address.

As always, I want to thank you guys for listening, and I want to thank you all for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. If you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes that we’ve got there for our patrons. Of course, go explore all the great work that we’re doing at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle.

Sign up for the Real News Newsletter, so you never miss a story, and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you, it really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

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Editor-in-Chief
Ten years ago, I was working 12-hour days as a warehouse temp in Southern California while my family, like millions of others, struggled to stay afloat in the wake of the Great Recession. Eventually, we lost everything, including the house I grew up in. It was in the years that followed, when hope seemed irrevocably lost and help from above seemed impossibly absent, that I realized the life-saving importance of everyday workers coming together, sharing our stories, showing our scars, and reminding one another that we are not alone. Since then, from starting the podcast Working People—where I interview workers about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles—to working as Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review and now as Editor-in-Chief at The Real News Network, I have dedicated my life to lifting up the voices and honoring the humanity of our fellow workers.
 
Email: max@therealnews.com
 
Follow: @maximillian_alv

Mel Buer is a staff reporter for The Real News Network, covering U.S. politics, labor, and movements and the host of The Real News Network Podcast. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and others. Prior to joining TRNN, she worked as a freelance reporter covering Midwest labor struggles, including reporting on the 2021 Kellogg's strike and the 2022 railroad workers struggle. In the past she has reported extensively on Midwest protests and movements during the 2020 uprising and is currently researching and writing a book on radical media for Or Books. Follow her on Twitter or send her a message at mel@therealnews.com