Teamster Militants Allegedly Terrorize Drivers 

Dumpsters Overflowing in Boston as Union Czar’s ‘War’ Drags on

Six-and-a-half decades ago, when the notorious Jimmy Hoffa still ruled over the Teamsters, labor-relations scholar and attorney Sylvester Petro accurately observed that Mr. Hoffa had forged what was then America’s biggest union largely through violence and extortion: 

“The Teamsters Union has secured a substantial part of its membership by pure terror and by a campaign of monopolistic secondary boycotts unapproached in American history.” 

Today, top bosses of the Teamsters continue to glorify Mr. Hoffa as a hero. 

This June, for example, current Teamster czar Sean O’Brien issued a statement extolling Mr. Hoffa, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1967 for the crimes of misappropriating millions of dollars in workers’ pensions and tampering with a jury to beat the rap for taking bribes from an employer. 

According to Mr. O’Brien, this convicted felon, who also repeatedly orchestrated violence against workers who didn’t bend to his will, was a “great man and legendary labor leader” who brought “dignity” and “respect” to workers! 

Lawless Strikers Reportedly Put Lives of Drivers at Risk, Again and Again

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented: 

“The ongoing destructive garbage strike in Boston and its environs that top bosses of Teamsters Local 25, the union subsidiary that Sean O’Brien headed before he took over the national union, are perpetrating confirms that the malign spirit of Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well in the union hierarchy today.

“Local 25 kingpin Tom Mari shows no interest in calling off the strike, even as overflowing dumpsters put public safety at risk, despite the fact that waste-management company Republic Services is reportedly offering continued zero-premium health care and a 43% pay increase over five years. According to the company, drivers would make roughly $140,000 a year by the end of the proffered contract. 

“Mr. Mari, with Sean O’Brien’s full support, seems determined to force Republic Services to switch Local 25-‘represented’ workers to the Teamster Union’s own health plan, though it is not clear how that would benefit those workers.

“Meanwhile, to prevent union-free Republic Services workers in the Boston area from collecting trash and recyclables, Teamster militants have reportedly resorted time and again to tactics that put those workers’ lives in jeopardy.” 

According to Republic Services, which, as this Newsletter edition went to press, was still seeking a judicial injunction to stop illegal strike tactics, Teamster agents have repeatedly attempted to “blind drivers’ vision” and “interfere with moving vehicles.”

On one occasion, they even “attempted to mob a moving vehicle so as to cause a motor vehicle accident . . . .” 

On Independence Day, “at a customer location,” a Teamster zealot allegedly “sprayed opaque white window cleaner in a driver’s face”!

‘We Will . . . Shut Down Garbage Collection In State After State’

A July 9 national Teamster press release quotes Mr. O’Brien declaring “war” against Republic Services and its thousands of nonstriking employees:

“We will flood the streets and shut down garbage collection in state after state.” 

To make good on that threat, Teamster dons have sent striking employees from Boston to places as varied as Los Angeles, Seattle, and Youngstown, Ohio, to incite “sympathy” strikes.

In city after city, the union hierarchy has set up pickets that nonstriking Teamsters wouldn’t dare to cross, spreading garbage-strike misery to millions. 

“The only honorable response for an elected official to have to the garbage-strike thuggery Tom Mari, Sean O’Brien, and other Teamster chiefs are orchestrating is to condemn it and seek to revoke Big Labor special privileges that have facilitated it,” said Mr. Mix. 

He specifically cited federal legislation, scheduled to be introduced shortly after Newsletter press time, that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Enmons decision. 

This misbegotten decision exempts violence and sabotage committed to advance so-called “legitimate union objectives” from prosecution under federal anti-extortion law. 

“Unfortunately,” concluded Mr. Mix, “all too many politicians, including a handful of Republicans like U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley [Mo.], continue to ignore reality and pretend Teamster bosses are on the workers’ side!” 

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