Perhaps unaware that many rank and file Teamsters have been part of the Tea Party movement, Teamster Boss Jim Hoffa erroneously charged, “The tea-baggers show up and are against Social Security and Medicare; they even want to shut down the VA hospitals.”
Again, Hoffa displays the problem with top down control of labor unions created by the forced-union monopoly bargaining system that evolved from the NLRA and NLRB decisions. Without the power to force workers to pay dues combined with federally-mandated monopoly bargaining, Hoffa would need to listen to his members rather than tell them what they should think.