Results and thoughts surrounding the No Endorsement

[John Palmer]

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS

What the public is seeing now, after Local Teamster organizations around the country began announcing their last-minute endorsements of Harris, is nothing more than a cynical attempt to have it both ways. The Presidents of the various Joint Councils now endorsing Harris including many, if not most, of the same people who voted to NOT endorse Harris on the national level. A hypocritical and dangerous conundrum to say the least.



The hand-picked Rank and File questioners that participated in every roundtable were polled after the Harris meeting. They unequivocally asserted their support for Vice President Harris and her positions supporting the Teamsters and the larger labor movement.



Here is the actual tally of votes from the General Executive Board members who participated in the GEB endorsement vote:

Final Poll results.jpg








?

[DanaCos]

Is asking the membership who "WE" should endorse a bad idea? Isn't that the job of the people that represent me supposed to do? I could care less about most of those people on the board, but when they do their job right, I don't and will never criticism them for it.

[Nickjamesups]

[DanaCos]

Nick,

I don't want get in to the politics of it all but the membership should always run the union. Same goes with contracts. Look what happened in 2013 when our contract at UPS was pushed on us. John knows how I feel. I already told him on the phone how I feel about O'Brien and my disappointments how the 2013 contract was handled. I know blue dog Democrats who refuse to vote for Kamala.

I feel it is Sean's job to learn why we don't want to vote for her. The vote wasn't even close. There are reasons why 1 million out of 1.3 million refuse to involve themselves in our own elections. If you ask me, people are fed up how our union has been run for years.

You do have a good point. Why vote the way you did then go back to their membership and say something different? Perhaps they need confronted about it.

[califeederdrvr]

[Watcher745]

[JWebb]

It wasn't just the California VP's and Joint Councils. Looks like several of the VP's who voted no endorsement went home and voted to endorse Harris.

[Gimliboston9]

[JWebb]

Interesting list of the courageous Vice Presidents unable to either be at at the meeting or vote: Juan Campos, Matt Taibi, Tony Jones and Rick Hicks. Way to represent guys.

[Gimliboston9]

Hicks already endorsed Harris in his local.

[DanaCos]

It was because they had straw.polls and people are easily corrupted when they go to vote in person. A vast majority of people that think differently than the union do not bother to even step foot in their union hall. That's why they call it the silent majority.

[califeederdrvr]

[Jon Guest]

[Bob Randall]

Kudos to the three that set their fears of retaliation aside and voted their minds and hearts. I am confident that among the others there were some (most) that prefered a Harris endorsement. Here is a long standing problem within the Teamsters Union (as well as other unions). Internationals have a history of retaliating in a number of ways as do other internal bodies that can exert some level of power. I'm referring to obstructionism. That is a practice of preventing the "lower" bodies from accomplishing the right thing for the membership. This vote clearly shows some of the GEB members had that concern and did not wish to "rock the boat". THAT'S OUR HISTORY! It is prevelant even at the Local levels. Especially with respect to grievance panels. In my Local I was responsible for handling grievances within a regional CBA that included other Locals. My Local's politics were a bit different from most of the Locals involved. For no other reason than that I had grievances that were decided before I walked through the door to present the members' case. I'm positive that it has happened at the UPS panels as well. I'm not saying that I have a definite solution. I'm saying that it happens and it's clear to me that this was a concern among GEB members in this case.

[Graveyard]

?

[Bob Randall]

Agreed. So many officers/agents believe that self serving appearances, as opposed to comprehensive actions in the best interest of the membership, wins elections. Simply doing your job well in the best interest of the members practically assures one of re-election. As divided as we are over this issue...no endorsement alone would prevent an incumbent from winning relection. However, the self serving lack of endorsement for one or more reasons will certainly have at least some negative affect on the membership. Indefensible.

[Tony R Cochran]

As usual, the rank-and-file members in the room to "make decisions" are simply placed at kid's table. Or better yet, they are wallpaper meant to give the room a look of "democracy." The rank-and-file members selected included, I believe, my own local VP. I hope that this will make him consider running against Davison. I would vote for Mr. Brown.

[WTF891]

Buckle your chinstrap, took too many shots to that bald head. It's not easy playing second string in Medford