What Significance Does ‘Shawn Vs. Sean’ Have for Working Class People??
UAW President Shawn Fain.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien.
By Joe Maniscalco
What do you make of two of the most powerful union leaders in the country when one of them essentially tells Donald Trump to go pound sand — and the other one basically goes to Mar-a-Lago and kisses his big fat fascist ass?
Is it all just, as some suggest, more disingenuous triangulation from a pair of savvy political insiders who’ve decided it’s better to throw their lot in with either the “Blue No Matter Who” side of the corporate duopoly or the “MAGA” side — and working class principles and decency be damned?
Many in the labor movement say, “affirmative” on that, and simply can’t be bothered with putting too much stock in this kind of tired political schtick.
Both UAW President Shawn Fain and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien have sure turned off lots of people after deciding to either back or legitimize “Genocide Joe” and “Dear Leader Drumpf” in their respective quests for the White House.
There’s no shortage of PO’ed people right now who cheered Fain in December after he stepped up, declared labor’s role in reclaiming America’s egalitarian spirit, and urgently called for a ceasefire in Gaza — but who are now fuming as they watch the same guy give the thumb’s up to right wing maniac Bibi Netanyahu’s number one enabler.
Rank and file Teamsters, meanwhile, are so angry at O’Brien for traveling to Mar-a-Lago and bending the knee to a fascist, that they’ve launched a petition drive to vociferously denounce their own union president for collaborating with the enemy.
All this is true.
But might we at least be witnessing some kind of emerging “class struggle unionism” — the kind author Joe Burns talks about in his books — butting up against a worn out retread of the “business unionism” responsible for the American labor movement’s decades old decline?
Maybe a kernel?
Fain gets big points for just for being a “dope” in Donald Trump’s eyes — and in the current state of our sad reality, talking about organizing a general strike in 2028 makes the UAW president look like friggin’ Eugene V. Debbs — even if last year’s UAW strike wasn’t actually all it was cracked up to be.
Noted labor activist, scholar and Hard Ball Press novelist Bill Fletcher Jr. says we are, indeed, witnessing “two very different views of trade unionism” in action.
Fain has been fomenting “something approaching class struggle unionism,” Fletcher tells Work-Bites. “[He] basically gets it — Trump was a scab.” O’Brien, on the other hand, “appears to be shaped by Jimmy Hoffa trade unionism…not the corruption…but Hoffa played this game where he was basically prepared to do business with whoever he thought would serve the Teamsters union and his particular objectives.”
According to Fletcher, the head of the Teamsters is “misreading the historical moment” that he’s in. “It was bad enough Hoffa was dealing with [disgraced former President Richard] Nixon” Fletcher says, “now, we’re dealing with a fascist [in Donald Trump].”
Chris Silvera, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 808 in New York, knows the differences between “class struggle unionism” and “business unionism” very well. This week, he told WorkWeek Radio host Steve Zeltzer that O’Brien made a “mistake” going down to Mar-a-Lago and “kissing the ring” of a latter-day “Confederate” — and that the class struggle unionists inside the IBT should have been able to rein him in.
“Mar-a-Lago is the place you go to bow down,” Silvera said. The mere fact that O’Brien would even consider endorsing Trump is “an affront” to rank and file members, he added.
The Teamsters petition denouncing O’Brien’s actions says, in part, “we want to make clear that current President Joe Biden does not represent the interests of Teamsters any more than Trump does. As union members, it is necessary for us to collectively break from the strong hold of politicians who uphold the interests of the rich, ruling class, and powerful.”
Class struggle unionism gets us there.
Maybe Fain isn’t the real deal. Or maybe, he’s just gonna need working class people to make him the Debbs our ailing country needs him to be. In any case, we can’t wait around to find out what he does. We have to take the lead, today, and every day. The battle of “Shawn vs. Sean” might contain some interesting elements, but there’s not a working person alive today who can afford to be a passive spectator anymore.