Posts tagged Sean O’Brien
Former IBT Vice President Charged with Corruption
February 17, 2026 // The report will now be reviewed by General President Sean O’Brien and the General Executive Board who have 90 days to take action. The IIO report documents luxury meals, featuring top-shelf liquor and wine of $300-$400 a bottle, with one $890 bottle going on the union tab. Members’ dues money paid for extravagant meals not just for officers but for their family and friends. In all, the IIO investigation found that over a five-year period, Griswold used the union credit card to spend at least $51,261.38 for unauthorized expenses that had no union purpose and that Harren did the same to the tune of $82,681.
100% of Rail Union Political Advocacy Dollars Went to Left-Wing Organizations
February 3, 2026 // Special interest campaigns aligned with left-of-center policy priorities were also among the most notable recipients. These include Vote NO On 1, a campaign opposing a right-to-work ballot initiative, and the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care, an organization advocating for a Medicare-for-All system. Other examples include the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, whose leaders have ties to prominent unions, the Association for Innovative Passenger Rail Operations, and the U.S. High Speed Rail Association—both of which promote transportation policies frequently supported by Democratic lawmakers and progressive coalitions. RBC & Associates, a boutique firm owned by the president of the Association for Innovative Passenger Rail Operations, also made the list. Notable left-wing media recipients include DemList, LLC, a national political column dedicated to informing the Democratic party and its allies.
100% of Rail Union Political Advocacy Dollars Went to Left-Wing Organizations
January 27, 2026 // Now, labor leaders requested a newly penned Executive Order from President Trump mandating a board mediate disputes between unions associated with the Long Island Railroad, including BLET, and the New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority in order to avoid a strike. “The Teamsters union and its president, Sean O’Brien, continually make a show of crossing party lines and working with the current president,” said CUF communications director Charlyce Bozzello. “Don’t let their rhetoric fool you. The Teamsters’ own political advocacy skews almost completely to the left, and now we know the same is true for its major affiliates.”
Watson Commentary: Making the AFL-CIO great again: labor policy in 2026
January 20, 2026 // The biggest labor issue of all might be the changing composition of what remains of the union movement. Goodbye, manual-labor men; hello purple-haired they/them grad students.
California Clears Path for Gig Unions
November 23, 2025 // It's also clear that the political left will not be content to merely stop at unionization. Progressives like former California assemblymember (and sponsor of A.B. 5) Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) have described unionization as "a step forward" but not "the limit of what's possible." Teamster President Sean O'Brien—whose GOP-convention speech highlighted Republicans' shift toward unions—has dismissed a similar Massachusetts unionization effort for gig workers, saying it supports "greedy corporations that want to deny full employment rights to workers."
Trump administration slow-plays decision on expanding automated railroad inspection technology
November 18, 2025 // “The idea is, that while the train is in normal operations, this system is constantly scanning the track for defects, so the waiver would allow the use of this technology,” he stated. “The Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center, which is their kind of in-house think tank, has been clamoring for exactly this type of thing for decades, and now the technology has arrived that allows carriers to actually do it.” Scribner noted that the Biden administration was sued multiple times by rail carriers for, like Trump, slow- walking automated track inspection waivers, claiming that was “a situation where Railway Labor had had really captured a safety regulatory agency, which should be very, very concerning to the American public.”
Revived Lawsuit Could Hold Teamsters Accountable for Yellow Trucking’s Bankruptcy
November 17, 2025 // Teamsters President Sean O’Brien called Yellow’s CEO a “greedy piece of sh*t,” and spent the company’s last days sending him insulting and childish text messages – even though the jobs of 22,000 Teamsters hung in the balance.
Top labor groups break with federal union’s support of Republican measure to end shutdown
November 4, 2025 // But many of the top labor unions told ABC News that they continue to back the strategy taken up by Democrats, breaking with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers losing out on pay and staring down the threat of layoffs. Many labor unions, a key bloc within the Democratic Party, support the push for an extension of Obamacare subsidies and remain eager to fight a president they view as an adversary of workers, some labor analysts and union officials said.
Democrats’ rift with unions erupts as shutdown pain worsens
October 31, 2025 // The White House on Thursday night released a video to social media in which the presidents of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, Allied Pilots Association and National Air Traffic Controllers Association endorse Republicans' stopgap government funding bill. "The biggest way to ensure the safety, security and reliability of our national air traffic control system is to pass a clean continuing resolution," said Jody Reven, president of the SAPA. The union leaders said a month of missed paychecks is distracting and stressful for Transportation Security Administration workers and air traffic controllers and will ultimately disrupt airport operations.
Op-ed: The Bad Teamsters Bargain With UPS
October 30, 2025 // Businesses that lose money and are uncompetitive won’t survive. See trucking company Yellow Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2023 in part owing to Mr. O’Brien’s labor militancy. Mr. O’Brien refused concessions and tweeted an image of a tombstone “Yellow: 1924-2023.” UPS doesn’t want to be Mr. O’Brien’s next victim. The Teamsters boss has insisted that its contract requires UPS to create 30,000 jobs. He hasn’t read the fine print—or is misleading his members. UPS merely committed to giving part-time employees a chance to apply for some full-time job openings. If UPS reduces job openings, workers don’t have an opportunity to fill them.