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Who’s Afraid of Richard Hooker to Lead the Teamsters?

Image courtesy be-fearless.org.

With a few weeks to go before the start of the Teamsters’ union convention in Las Vegas, a major push is on to deny Richard Hooker the five per cent of delegates needed for him and his Fearless slate to be nominated. While there is still much skullduggery afoot to trash the reputation of Richard Hooker, the first African-American candidate for General President of the Teamsters, most of it is now quite open and increasingly nasty, as he challenges Sean O’Brien, the pro-Trump leader of the union.

A recent screed by Frank Halstead, a longstanding member and co-chair of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) in Southern California, was appears to be part of this campaign, while defending, however reluctantly, Hookers right to run. Frank lashes the Fearless slate for its shortcomings, which in some cases are true, including its failure to get enough signatures for candidate accreditation and not enough rank-and-file Teamsters on its slate. “The Fearless Slate just runs our union down. The Fearless slate can’t even run a real campaign. Why would members trust them to run our union?” he bellows.

Frank’s angry, mocking attacks on Hooker and Fearless remind me of the long-ago attacks on TDU by the Teamsters mobbed-up, old guard, who ridiculed it as “Tearing Down Unions” or “Too Dumb to Understand.” He ends his rant by virtually calling on Fearless to drop out of the race:

“Our Election Rules give opposition candidates every opportunity to prove themselves as organizers and leaders on the ground. But it’s up to the campaigns to do the work. The Fearless Slate has not done that. They’ve failed every test of leadership. They have the right to run. But they don’t deserve our support.”

“Our Election Rules give opposition candidates every opportunity to prove themselves as organizers and leaders on the ground. But it’s up to the campaigns to do the work. The Fearless Slate has not done that. They’ve failed every test of leadership. They have the right to run. But they don’t deserve our support.”

I can hear the echoes of Hoffa Jr.’s cronies, who repeatedly called on Tom Leedham to drop out of several races during the early 2000s, where he challenged Hoffa for leadership of the Teamsters. I can remember them shouting “You can’t win”, “It’s a waste of time,” “Save us $20 million,” “We know who’s going to win!” Frank finds himself in bad company.

But, I also........

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