???????Teamsters React to SOB and Trump Movie Tariff

[OT+]

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Teamsters React to SOB and Trump Movie Tarrrif

[AlJackson1962!]

Reading the above comments - I don't know where they were originally posted, I am glad to see Mel Packer at the top of the page, and his comment: "O'Brien is a scab on the working class, so let's pick it."
Mel Packer I remember was one of the earliest TDU activists in the 70's. As I recall, he drove for Helms Astro, the steel hauling arm of Helms, and was a member of Pittsburgh Local 249 (?). He stood to speak at the 1980 TDU Convention in Cleveland. I can still see and hear him now, when he told the TDU members there, that a night or two before the Convention, he still had a half load of steel to deliver and had laid over in Metuchen, NJ. Mel was such a skilled TDU activist and organizer, that Helms management was hoping to prevent him from attending the TDU Convention by dispatching him through the weekend. Can't remember all the details, but Mel made it to Cleveland and he gave an impassioned speech about how rank and file Teamsters need to build an army to take back our Union. After that, and I'm going back almost 45 years here, my memory is that Helms laid off like 30 list men, in order to lay off Mel. He was that much of a threat. I believe he was blacklisted eventually and had to find another trade, in order to live. My memory is that Mel was pretty tight with Paff then. What does Paff say to defend his silence?

So, I ask myself, how is it possible that Ken Paff now works for and defends Sean O'Brien? TDU leadership (Paff and David Levin) have been mesmerized by O'Brien and TDU is silent on what is happening under O'Brien. This is not what TDU was about. It was a genuine rank and file movement, and a force to be reckoned with. And how can the entire OZ Slate and the entire TDU Steering Committee remain silent? I did not think such a thing would happen; that ideals and principles have been abandoned. Live and learn, I guess.

A key difference between TDU of that era and today: Local TDU chapters had autonomy and published their own chapter newspapers. In Pittsburgh, it was "The Horses Mouth". In Boston we had "The HUB". We distributed thousands of Convoys along with our local HUB newspaper throughout metro Boston, at terminal gates, diners, truck stops and under the wiper blades of Teamster members cars in the parking lots where they worked. Our paper was well received and we knew JC10 President Billy McCarthy hated us for it. There is a great history of TDU. It is being lost and forgotten as Paff and Levin sit at their table with Sean O'Brien, as much of a disgrace as Jackie Presser.

Thank you Mel Packer for telling it like it is. Let's demand the same from every elected Teamster officer, BA, and TDU Steering Committee members: all of them elected to represent the interests of the rank and file. Time for them to explain their silence. Anything less is unacceptable.

I'm retired, but I won't shut up.

[JWebb]

I hope you never shut up, we need to hear the history from those who lived it on the front lines. What a great post,

[Thisischange?]

100% Brother Webb! TDU needs to return to it's core. I thought Paff retired, I guess he can't stop playing with his toy.

[OT+]

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Truck Drivers worried about their jobs

[WTF891]

He's a LOSER!

[The Direct Line]

Well that second comment sounds about right.
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