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Teamsters president Sean O'Brien raised eyebrows when he agreed to speak at the Republican National Convention. He raised even more eyebrows with an address that asserted that Donald Trump is, in effect, one of the greatest guys on Earth, and that the Republicans have become the pro-union party. Several stories from yesterday would seem to undermine that assertion.
To start, since it is most directly relevant to O'Brien, the Teamsters' Black Caucus—yes, that's a thing, apparently—officially bestowed its endorsement on Harris yesterday. Thus far, the union as a whole has not made an endorsement, and says it may or may not do so once both conventions are over. Although, given O'Brien's speech, it's not too hard to guess where the leadership stands. Or the white leadership, at least.
As a sidebar, the Politico article we link in the previous paragraph suggests that it is very bold for the Teamsters' Black Caucus to break ranks like this, observing that "Publicly backing Harris risks pushback in a union with a history of retaliation." It is true that the Teamsters have a history of retaliation... with help from friends in the Mob. Is Politico suggesting that the leaders of the Teamsters' Black Caucus are at risk of getting rubbed out, Jimmy Hoffa-style?
Moving along, we wrote a negative review of the Donald Trump-Elon Musk lovefest on eX-Twitter that took place on Monday. As it turns out, things have gone from bad to worse. The duo, each of whom have many people working for them, joked about how fun it is to engage in strikebreaking. Ha, ha! Trump even dubbed Musk "the cutter" for his take-no-prisoners approach to union labor.
The United Auto Workers—and in particular UAW president Shawn Fain, a staunch opponent of Trump—didn't think it was funny at all. So much so that the UAW filed federal labor charges against both men yesterday. It is not easy to do an interview so bad that you end up facing federal charges. Obviously, this matter will not be resolved until after the election. And even if the UAW wins, the penalties will be relatively minor. The clear purpose here is to generate some headlines that communicate, in so many words, "DONALD TRUMP IS NO FRIEND OF LABOR."
Ok, so the business tycoon is not pro-labor. But maybe the hillbilly is? Not so much, as it turns out. Yet another story that broke yesterday is about J.D. Vance's investment in AppHarvest, a startup that was theoretically going to help farmers in Kentucky bring their operations into the 21st century. The company failed, first of all. Second, it hired a bunch of local workers, and then worked them so hard (in 100+ degree temperatures, much of the time) that there were multiple investigations from both federal and state regulators. Third, when the local workers pushed back against their working conditions, they were fired en masse, and replaced with immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and other Latin American countries.
All in all, the Trump ticket may be with labor on culture wars issues, but it is pretty clearly not with labor on labor issues. Expect the Democrats to make that latter point a few times at their convention next week. (Z)