UAW President Shawn Fain’s cheerleading for tariffs hasn’t been working out well for his members. Auto workers face looming layoffs due to consumer pullback over higher prices. Some Michigan UAW leaders are now blasting Fain’s support of tariffs against Canada, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. And if anybody thought other union chiefs would heed this cautionary tale, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien is here with a “hold my beer”-style attitude.
Tariffs will hit UPS Teamsters, too: During a recent earnings call, UPS projected 20,000 job losses due to a tariff-influenced restructuring. The company is gearing up for a downturn due to 145% tariffs on imports from China, and UPS expects to see Temu shipments fall and a hefty downturn in Amazon shipping volumes.
After the earnings call, O’Brien argued that UPS is still “obligated to create 30,000 Teamsters jobs under our current national master agreement,” and if the company “makes any attempt to go after hard-fought, good-paying Teamsters jobs, UPS will be in for a hell of a fight.”
Well, O’Brien appears to have forgotten how the Teamsters’ 2023 UPS contract battle resulted in the global logistics company needing to balance the books against higher labor costs. As a result, UPS cut 12,000 jobs and leaned into automation, and workers faced the reality that unions cannot protect workers from layoffs as falsely promised.
Teamsters Glee Over Hollywood Tariffs: Then there’s O’Brien and Teamsters 399 local principal officer Lindsay Doherty’s joint decision to praise Trump’s Hollywood tariff idea. The pair endorses Trump’s “100% tariff” wish for “any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands.” The duo’s statement further claimed that “these companies get rich fleeing to other countries and gaming the system,” and “our members have gotten screwed over.”
It must be noted that no official plan for movie tariffs exists yet, and Trump made his announcement after a discussion with actor Jon Voight on how to “fix Hollywood.” Nobody seems to mention that the film industry is suffering for other reasons, including the rise in streaming content, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that O’Brien favors these tariffs and is bragging that he speaks with Trump “three to four times a month.” This elbow rubbing seems more important to the bigwig than job losses to come.
If these Hollywood tariffs do go forward, we could see independent studios feel the same crippling strain that small businesses and retailers are feeling from tariffs on goods. This result would be counterproductive to the Teamsters claiming to be in favor of the “little guy,” given that larger studios would be better positioned to shift production back to the states. That also couldn’t happen overnight, and job losses would run rampant.
Of course, that’s not all: CVS warehouse workers and drivers alleged that the Teamsters rammed a contract through after “threatening” members over a snap vote. Despite lower than promised wage increases, the Teamsters are now celebrating a “strong” contract, which sounds like more union fiction. And if job losses begin at CVS due to higher labor costs, expect O’Brien’s fingers to keep pointing everywhere but himself.
