Harris County Teamsters Local 988, In Contrast To Houston Firefighters, Endorsed Harris Despite National Non-Endorsement

​I saw a post on Facebook recently that Harris County-based Teamsters Local 988 has authorized a strike against Sysco Corporation. Above is a picture from Facebook of Local 988's meeting where the matter was discussed.  

(I looked around for specifics of the dispute between the Teamsters and Sysco. I didn't find that information. But I did find a press release from December of 2019 about the signing of a five year contract between the company and union. My wager is the contract is up and no new contract has been signed.)

The national Teamsters union did not endorse in the presidential election which was a lousy thing to do.  Overall, reliable exit polls report Vice President Harris defeated Trump with union voters 57%-41%. Whatever that Trump-voting 41% was thinking, it was not about what was best for their union. (I recently read a book called Rust Belt Union Blues about the rise of Republican voting by union members in western Pennsylvania. I found it even-handed and interesting.) 

I went to the Facebook page of Local 988 to see if they endorsed Harris. They did.

Here is what they said:

Teamsters Local Union No. 988 proudly endorse the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for President.

“Workers must continue to elect candidates who support policies that strengthen their rights in the workplace,” said Local 988 President Robert Mele, “Policies that will not weaken workers’ pensions, allow companies to threaten their jobs with unsafe or unregulated automation, or undermine workers’ ability to strike. As organizing continues to gain momentum, the Teamsters need elected officials who will fight for us, not against us. Kamala Harris is that candidate.”

​Some local unions fell far short of Local 988's correct decision to endorse Harris. 

​Politico ran an article in October about the decision of the International Association of Firefighters to make no endorsement in the presidential race. The article says the national firefighters were close to endorsing Harris, but yielded to pressure from local chapters--Including Houston-- to not endorse.

From the article: 

"But the union president, Edward Kelly, was under intense pressure by key local chapters — including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and some officials in Los Angeles and Houston, along with a swath of rank-and-file members — to withhold endorsing Harris, with some threatening to pull out of the larger union if it did. Some chapters followed through on threats to leave the union after it endorsed John Kerry in 2004, and the IAFF declined to endorse in 2016. The pressure this year was even higher."

​Houston Firefighters Local 341-an AFL-CIO union-appears to bear some responsibility for the election of Donald Trump. There were local firefighter unions that did the right thing despite the national non-endorsement. This is just as Houston Teamsters Local 988 endorsed Vice President Harris despite a national Teamsters non-endorsement. 

The Texas Gulf Coast AFL-CIO Area Labor Council has lost its way in Houston municipal politics with strong support of Mayor John Whitmire and the firefighters. (Local 988 also endorsed Whitmire.) Back on Labor Day, I wrote how local organized labor could hold reactionary Mayor Whitmire accountable. City Controller Chris Hollins has been clear that the recently-signed firefighters contract puts Houston's finances at risk. That's bad enough. But to get all that money & then do Trump's work for him--That's very much wrong conduct. 

​Unions must make clear what consistent efforts they are making with rank-and-file members to educate them about anti-labor candidates and elected officials. If 41% of the membership of a group or interest is backing Trump as the exit polls show for organized labor, that is not a group or interest you can really trust in the difficult days ahead.

Unions that support Trump and Trump-aligned Republicans are not friends of democracy or of the union movement. If internal union politics or the perceived interests of a specific union lead to support of Trump and the anti-labor right, we as democracy-loving Americans have no obligation of support to that union.

It is difficult in the current political and social situation to feel much of anything other than we are all on our own. But I can't live that way and keep any measure of hope. My own view of solidarity is that it involves anybody willing to show up and fight the anti-democratic oligarchy set to run the country. Unions that show up for the interests of all Americans are allies. Unions that instead support the Musk/Trump Presidency are known associates of billionaires and Putin. Nobody gets a pass on anything without the concrete fact of being an active part of the fight against Musk/Trump. 

I'm on the Egberto Willies Politics Done Right Show every Thursday from 6 AM to 7 AM for the Houston Democracy Project segment. You can hear the show on the radio, stream it on KPFT or watch later on Egberto's YouTube channel.​​

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