TODAY: We give an update on Alex's goo situation and Tony makes the cowardly decision not to get jumped at his bar. ALSO: We join Teamsters president Sean O'Brien in congratulating former UPS and Amazon exec being appointed to OSHA. Why is a boss having his reputation laundered by a labor leader? Is "former worker" a high bar to clear? PLUS: An anonymous UPS Teamster complains that his union won't allow him to prep his route off the clock. We commend rank and file for stepping up to educate this member, discuss working off the clock as well as the merits of dealing in good faith with fellow members--even when they regurgitate anti-union propaganda. FINALLY: We laugh at some reactionary organizing attempts within the union and remember funny hardcore band merch Get a bonus episode every week and 20% off all merch by signing up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult for only $5/month BUY OUR SERIOUS AND NOT FUNNY MERCH AT www.miniondeathcultmerch.bigcartel.com
So, I saw this tweet from the Teamsters official account, my union's official Twitter account.
The Teamsters union applauds the at White House on tapping David Keeling to join the Department of Labor and lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA. Keeling worked as a part-time package handler at United Parcel Service before spending nearly 20 years with UPS. Okay, interesting phrasing there.
Yeah, that's...
Because Teamsters shared this image, a graphic, you know, like a Teamsters graphic that says, Teamsters applaud White House for naming former UPS worker to lead OSHA. And I was like, okay, yeah, they put a driver in there, they put a, you know, a porter up there, or what?
No, they put a fucking VP, a UPS... Who was in charge of UPS's safety, as well as Amazon's safety.
Oh, God!
He was an Amazon executive during the period of time when Amazon had its most ever health lawsuits, health claims, as well as UPS. I don't want to knee-jerk say that,
well, The safety guy is management, so I can't say he's done a good job or I can't say whatever about him.
I haven't really heard anything great about our safety record.
I hear about our local and regional safety record, but I haven't seen anything that...
It has wowed me about UPS's approach to safety in recent years relative to years before.
I've been an employee at UPS for 19 years now.
I've seen my safety committee do good work.
That's like workers doing that stuff.
I just...
It's very weird to frame it as a former worker when he worked as a part-timer for a year.
I don't know.
I'm assuming that was separate from his run.
It's not like he got promoted.
It would be like me claiming being a former UPS worker because I did work there for three months.
Right.
Well, you can claim that for sure because you didn't do anything that cancels it out.
No, but that did not lead to my position as a VP. I don't think he got promoted from there.
I'm sure there's a gap between.
It was coincidental that he worked there earlier and then came back probably.
Does that sound right?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know his exact tenure, but it's funny the framing this way because it's like we have If we don't have evidence specifically of him doing a poor job at UPS,
although I'm sure we had a lot of injuries, we had many heat deaths, we were fined by OSHA itself for not providing air conditioning or not providing cooling in package cars.
That was under his tenure.
And then we have his tenure with Amazon where they saw egregious violations and were fined.
And I don't know that this is something that we have to applaud.
You know, I... It's weird.
It's weird calling a management guy a worker.
Even though it says former worker, like treating him like he's a worker.
Like, you can like the guy.
He can be a good manager, but that doesn't make him a worker.
That doesn't mean he should get credit for being a worker or whatever.
I don't know.
If I saw this guy in management and I saw him actually implement consideration for the workers because he...
Then I would sing a different tune.
I haven't seen any of that.
And somebody could show me something good he's done as safety exec or whatever.
But I just...
It's still somebody that we need to be putting pressure on.
To do good things, not laundering their reputation.
And I don't know.
I don't know that you, as the president of the Teamsters, can make an argument that putting out this tweet somehow gains the members anything.
Is the Trump administration going to be nicer to us because we play ball on...
This OSHA nominee?
Is that part of some agreement that Sean O'Brien has made?
I don't know what's going on here.
It seems very weird.
To me, it's even weirder than appearing at the RNC. Also, it would have been different if they just said...
It doesn't talk about him being a teamster, actually.
Does it mention him being a teamster here?
No.
Yeah, yeah.
Because if they would have just been like...
Former Teamster.
Yeah, 20-year Teamster is now...
That would have been kind of something, you know?
Sure, yeah.
But that's not what's happening here.
And if you do it for him, if you do the work for him where you're saying, hey, he's just a worker, that means he gets to do it now.
