Each time this century that the Teamsters reached tentative agreements with UPS on a nationwide contract, Eugene Braswell, like most members of Local 804 in Queens, didn’t hesitate before voting …
The fact that the bureaucracy feels compelled to make such threats is a sign of extreme nervousness about the danger of rank-and-file opposition from workers, among whom both management and the union apparatus are deeply hated.
Workers are determined to win back decades of pro-company concessions, dramatic improvements to their working conditions, wages and hours and an end to management harassment. But the Teamsters apparatus under General President Sean O’Brien, a career official being falsely recast as a rank-and-file militant, is preparing a pro-company sellout behind closed doors.