In a weekend when the world was reeling from the assassination try on former (and sure soon-to-be re-elected) President Donald Trump, one other historic occasion befell Monday night on the Republican Nationwide Conference in Milwaukee, the place Trump was bandaged. And she or he herself was a smiling witness, exhibiting the world what bravery she had within the face of this try on her life.
For the primary time, the chief of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, was invited to handle the RNC. This has triggered some consternation from commentators left and proper, which O’Brien himself invoked on stage as a cause for accepting Trump’s invitation to talk.
Though we frequently affiliate organized labor with Democrats, this was not at all times the case. The Teamsters, as soon as America’s strongest labor union; On the top of their energy, led by Jimmy Hoffa, they supported the Republican Social gathering, not less than for the reason that Nineteen Sixties within the race between Richard Nixon and JFK. That is maybe one clarification for the Kennedy clan dragging Hoffa to court docket and Nixon’s pardon of Hoffa in 1971 after 5 years in jail.
Hoffa, raised in a single-parent residence after his father’s loss of life and dealing full-time from the age of 14, was an outsider to the labor motion; He was not an ideologue, and rejected the associations with communism and socialism that different main union leaders had been concerned in.
1960 and 2024, nevertheless, are many worlds aside, and O’Brien guidelines over a a lot smaller kingdom. The Teamsters characterize roughly 5 p.c of truckers in America, and it has been 44 years for the reason that Labor Social gathering, below Jimmy Carter, handed the Motor Service Act of 1980, which resulted within the destruction of Teamsters membership and a drastic discount in trucker wages over the previous 4 a long time.
Trucking has many issues, and O’Brien might be praised for his look in Milwaukee and for one remark specifically: “I’ll at all times converse up for America and the American employee, each union and non-union.”
I’ve been a non-union trucker for 27 years of my grownup life, in 4 completely different nations, together with the US, the place I put down miles in every of the 48 beneath. I’ve some options for the incoming administration—it appears clear now that the Dems are completed—and hope O’Brien agrees with me concerning the import of the problems my options search to handle.
O’Brien repeatedly calls out “the American employee”; Does Mr. O’Brien perceive that immigrant teams are always victimized within the trucking trade, typically by their residence boys who’re already right here? Does he perceive that Japanese European gangsters are actively working within the freight brokerage market and are actually holding American corporations to ransom to ship their masses? Ought to America’s trucking trade be used as an ATM for individuals in different nations to extract worth, and thus scale back the share of the pie for American employees, whereas illegally holding worthwhile items hostage?
O’Brien is a great man, and though he barely mentions immigration or the inflow of unlawful immigrants into the American labor market, he definitely understands what is going on on right here.
I quote his speech once more: “Always remember, American employees personal this nation. We aren’t tenants. We aren’t tenants. However the company elites deal with us like squatters and that may be a crime we’ve got to repair.”
I could not agree extra, and I hope that O’Brien is working intently with President Trump and Vice President Vance to finish using international indentured servants on America’s streets, who not solely drive down American wages, however maintain them. The remainder of the motoring public is at nice danger.
The Teamsters, God bless them, are, like me, at odds with company foyer teams just like the American Trucking Affiliation, who for many years have propagated a delusion of a truck driver scarcity, largely used to persuade politicians that absorbing the taxpayers for his or her truck driving colleges is a retention drawback. Options that always see giant trucking corporations undergo almost one hundred pc of their workforce yearly.
The Republican Social gathering, nevertheless, has an extended historical past of listening to teams just like the ATA, reasonably than truckers, and is very happy to shovel taxpayer {dollars} into companies unwilling to unravel their very own labor issues.
O’Brien once more: “We want commerce insurance policies that put American employees first. We want company welfare reform.”
As soon as once more, O’Brien and I are simpatico, as a result of company welfare is the “resolution” to an issue created by the Motor Service Act of 1980. This “resolution” itself has created many extra issues – from the imposition of surveillance states to “nuclear judgments” on truckers which have pressured the insurance coverage trade right into a nook and made it more durable for trucking corporations to insure themselves and the aforementioned reliance on international contract employees to move our freight. made No surprise so many truckers stop the enterprise and search for greener pastures.
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The Republican Social gathering is usually related to a pro-business platform, but they typically deny state assist for personal enterprise.
With the rise of pro-worker populism within the social gathering, as evidenced by the actions of Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and the addition of Vance to Trump’s ticket, maybe Republicans could also be somewhat cautious of the insurance policies they’ve lengthy championed — insurance policies that elevate wages for considered one of America’s archetypal blue-collar jobs. Additional erosion of the ground and dealing situations has been seen to be taxpayer funded. Possibly Republicans may additionally finish the wage disparity that forestalls truck drivers from getting the time beyond regulation that just about each different employee in America enjoys and assist put more cash within the pockets of tens of millions of American households.
“Teamsters for Trump” shouldn’t be unprecedented in historical past, and maybe the Teamsters, amongst different advocates for truckers just like the Proprietor Operators/Unbiased Drivers Affiliation, can work with the Trump administration to create a greater future. all Truckers in America, their households and races.
