New York, NY — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with 1.4 million members, is one of the largest labor unions in the world. It is also the most diverse union in the U.S. The union represents everyone from A to Z – from airline pilots to zookeepers. One out of every ten union members is a Teamster. The Teamsters are known as the champion of freight drivers and warehouse workers, but have organized others in virtually every occupation imaginable, both professional and non-professional, private sector and public sector.
Its members are public defenders in Minnesota, vegetable workers in California, sanitation workers in New York, brewers in St. Louis, newspaper workers in Seattle, construction workers in Las Vegas, zoo keepers in Pennsylvania, healthcare workers in Rhode Island, bakery workers in Maine, airline pilots, secretaries and police officers. Name the occupation and chances are they represent those workers somewhere. There are nearly 1,900 Teamster affiliates throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico,
LaborPress spoke to incoming International President Sean O’Brien, who will take office in March after heading Local 25 in Boston, about his own storied history and about the organizing challenges facing the union.
LP: You’re a fourth generation Teamster, correct? What can you tell us about that?
SO: My maternal great-grandfather was an organizer in New Jersey way back when, and then they relocated to Boston. His son, which is my maternal grandfather, grew up in the same area that my parents and my father grew up in. My maternal grandfather was a World War II 82nd Airborne paratrooper, who, once he came back from World War II, actually was in the Teamsters union. Retired in 1991. My dad was a 51-year Teamster — he passed away suddenly ten years ago. Where they’re from and grew up, there were basically four options: you were either going to be a Boston cop, Boston firefighter, longshoreman or Teamster. The Teamsters were the highest paid in that area, so that’s how we all ended up here.
LP: And where did your family come from originally? Was it Ireland?
SO: Yeah, my great-grandparents came from Ireland. I’ve never traced the history. They relocated to Charlestown, Massachusetts. I grew up in Medford Massachusetts. All blue collar.
LP: And you joined the Teamsters in 1990?
SO: Yep. I worked in the rigging division, hauling heavy equipment, setting cranes up. I did that for about ten years from like 18 to 28. I’ve been working directly for the union — held every position whether it was steward, trustee — for the last twenty-two years.
LP: What are some of the highlights in your long career with the Teamsters?
SO: It’s been great. It’s the greatest organization in the world. Very proud of it. There’s been a lot of highlights. We’ve been able to do a lot of good for people in the workplace. We’ve had some great strikes, won a lot of victories. A good part about our leadership is — the good outweighs the bad. You always have your trials and tribulations, but we’ve been able to rebrand the logo over the last sixteen years. And we’re now seen as not only one of the strongest unions to represent working people in New England, but also throughout the whole country. We’ve also been able to be an example of giving back to the communities. We’re the largest fundraiser in the country for Autism Speaks. We have a gala once a year. We’re able to raise millions upon millions of dollars and we put it all right back into the community to support families and people affected with autism.
We’ve also been very influential politically, as far bridging the gap between — forging bipartisan relationships, being influential, getting on seats, boards and commissions. So, we’ve actually been able to navigate through and build a lot of great programs. We’ve been able to build a model known as the Futures Program — where we recruit union members that are thirty-five years and younger, and teach them the core values of the union. You know, everything we talked about: representing workers, getting the strongest contracts and being active and involved in the community, and also being active politically. We’re actually teaching that next generation, so that it’s given us the opportunity to recruit newer members and get them involved. It’s a different society now. But we’re trying to teach them core values so that they understand how important it is to protect, preserve and improve those values.
LP: Talk about the Teamsters’ organizing strategy regarding Amazon.
SO: The problems are much more on a broader scale than they were two years ago. Especially for these workers at Amazon, where there’s such a high demand for e-commerce because people aren’t going to stores, and you know, it’s convenient to order what you need off the phone. UPS is our largest employer. We’ve got an obligation to organize the unorganized especially in similar industries like UPS and Amazon. But it’s gonna be a great opportunity for us in many different ways. We can truly change the lives of these workers and make them better — and we could use the UPS model as a template. Although we need to make some changes there in the upcoming negotiations. To further solidify why non-union people in the e-commerce business and/or working in warehouses need to take a look at something they physically can look at, and say, this is the guarantee and this is what we can look forward to as potential union members — That’s why we want you to organize in these industries. But we’ve also got to protect the industries that we currently represent. It’s not just all about UPS with Amazon. We’ve got food distribution warehouses. Amazon’s now into the food distribution business. They own supermarkets, they own airlines, they own planes, they own trains — and that’s all within our wheelhouse of what we do as a transportation unit. Especially the Teamsters, the largest transportation union. So, it’s extremely important. It is a priority in our administration.
There has been, over the last year or so, a kind of template on how we organize Amazon. I’m not certain that’s the same strategy under this administration that we’re going to unleash when we get in there, but I think it’s the same principles. Look, the biggest struggle with Amazon is they’re so big and so powerful. They use an independent contractor model, number one, to deliver packages where our UPS drivers, truck drivers, or even the United States Postal Service, they’re direct employees and they’re getting benefits, they’re protected under a contract. That’s not a level playing field. So, we gotta look to leverage, some legislation to change these independent contractor models because it’s exploiting more immigrant workers — but it’s also driving down community standards. The direct employees are the part-timers that are working in these distribution facilities or these hubs, where they’re doing similar work or the same work as UPS members, DHL members. So we’ve got our work cut out for us, but it’s not going to be a traditional organizing drive where we’re outside the gates handing out cards. I mean, this is going to be an effort where we’ve got to engage community activists.
What we’ve been doing in New England and in Boston, and we’re going to take this local model to a larger model. Getting before city and town governments where these distribution facilities want to be built and/or rehabbed, and letting them know what the struggles of these workers are, what the plight of these workers are, and also trying to pass resolutions to uphold some sort of community standard. We all know resolutions in city and state government, most of the time are non-binding. However, it does give us an opportunity to enlighten and somewhat hold the Amazons of the world accountable, and getting the community activists involved. Everybody thinks that every package that’s delivered, it’s delivered by their UPS driver — and it’s not. We’ve got independent contractors for Amazon that aren’t CORI [criminal offender record information] checked, aren’t drug tested, so we can go at it from another public safety issue, and we’re trying to get the independent contractor model changed. There’s a lot of moving parts there. But there is a strategy and there is a thirst to do this. It’s just a long term plan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help the immediate future. But I’m confident with some resilience, with some sweat equity, and with some resources that we put in, I think we will be successful.
Amazon needs to be the top priority. But, you know, we’ve got a lot of core industries that we have a great opportunity to organize. We need to take advantage, whether it’s, trucking, construction — and we’ve had some great success organizing in the public sector. Even in light of the Janus decision, which basically labeled or basically created right to work in the public sector. So, we’ve got a lot of opportunity.
You know what the best part about it is? You see the Starbucks of the world being organized, and you see other places taking on strikes and fights. I think the general consensus is that workers are tired of being treated unfairly. Workers are tired of being exploited, especially over the last two years with the pandemic. I mean, if you are an essential worker, there’s no doubt that public perception has changed as a result of the goods and services that were provided whatever they may be. So, this is a great opportunity. I think companies like Amazon and Tesla and a lot of these other companies that — it’s been proven they made record profits during a pandemic — they need to share the wealth with our members in the workforce.
