Teamsters president calls GOP senator a ‘greedy CEO’ in heated exchange
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien got into a heated verbal exchange Wednesday in a Senate committee hearing focused on the right of workers to organize unions.
For nearly an hour, the hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was mostly a tepid affair, with the committee's chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and ranking Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, taking turns questioning a panel of major union leaders.
Sanders has been hoping to rally bipartisan support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, his bill hat passed the House in 2021 but does not have the 60 votes it would need to pass the Senate. At the beginning of the hearing, Sanders argued that the bill was necessary in "a very strange and unfair economy" in which more than 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
O'Brien, as well as some of the others on the panel, repeatedly argued that corporations were making record profits while workers — many of whom have risked their lives to provide essential goods and services during the coronavirus pandemic — were not enjoying the same payouts. And when workers tried to unionize to fight for better working conditions, the union leaders said, they faced illegal intimidation from their employers.
About halfway through the hearing, Mullin spoke up. He first urged the panel not to make the assumption that he was anti-union.
"I'm not against unions. I'm not at all," said Mullin, who owns a plumbing company. "Some of my very good friends work for unions. They work hard, and they do a good job."
Mullin said he wanted to "set the record straight." His concern was about "the intimidation" union leaders used when trying to unionize, he said, citing what had happened at his plumbing business as an example.
"I started with nothing — absolutely nothing," Mullin said. "In fact, I started below nothing. And I started growing this little plumbing company with six employees to now we have over 300 employees. And back in 2009. you guys tried to unionize me."
Mullin claimed that union pipe fitters would show up at his house, leaning up against his trucks. When that didn't work, he said, they would picket him, chanting: "Shame on Mullin! Shame on Mullin!"
"I'm not afraid of a physical confrontation. In fact, sometimes I look forward to it. That's not my problem. But when you're doing that to my employees?" Mullin said, adding, "For what? For what? Because we were paying higher wages? Because we had better benefits and we wasn't requiring them to pay your guys' exorbitant salaries?"
Mullin then asked about O'Brien's salary, before cutting him off and reading off numbers from a piece of paper comparing what he said O'Brien made in 2019 with what the average UPS feeder driver made.
"That's inaccurate. That's inaccurate. State facts. State facts," O'Brien said about the numbers, adding, "I know them, because I negotiate the contract."
Mullin, undeterred, pressed on.
"I say one thing to you: What do you bring for that salary?" Mullin said. "… What job have you created? One job."
Here, the exchange devolved into angry crosstalk. Mullin accused O'Brien of "sucking" money out of people's paychecks and "forcing them to pay dues."
O'Brien tried to interject to say Teamsters did not force members to pay dues, before declaring, "You're out of line."
Thrusting his finger at the witness panel, Mullin told O'Brien to shut his mouth because he didn't know what he was talking about, which prompted O'Brien to mock Mullin for his "tough guy" act. In the background, Sanders repeatedly banged his chairman's gavel in vain.
After some order had been restored, O'Brien proceeded to answer the question about his salary. The peace didn't last long.
"I bet you I work more hours than you do," O'Brien said. "Twice as many hours."
"Sir, you don't know what hard work is," Mullin snapped back. "You want to follow my schedule?"
"I'd do it in a minute," O'Brien said.
The two then argued over the average salary of a UPS feeder truck driver before Mullin returned to his accusation that O'Brien had never created a job.
"We create opportunity because we hold — we hold greedy CEOs like yourself accountable," O'Brien said.
"You calling me a greedy CEO?" Mullin asked.
"Oh yeah, you are," O'Brien replied. "You want to attack my salary, I'll attack yours. … What did you make when you owned your company?"
"When I made my company? I kept my salary down at about $50,000 a year because I invested every penny into it," Mullin said, nodding.
"Okay, all right," O'Brien said. He paused. "You mean you hid money?" he added.
An exasperated Mullin stopped and pointed at O'Brien again. "Hold on a second."
"All right, we're even. We're even," said O'Brien, who grinned slightly.
"You think you're smart? You think you're funny?" Mullin said.
Ultimately Mullin said O'Brien's behavior at the hearing showed how union leaders tried to intimidate employees when unionizing a business.
"The issue is, if you're really for the employee, then why are you against right to work? Why are you against private ballots?" Mullin said, adding, "I'm not anti-union, but when you don't want to have a private ballot, that's not intimidating?"
Mullin ran out of time shortly afterward, but the spat continued even after the hearing concluded, with O'Brien tweeting a link to a Tulsa World article that said Mullin's reported assets had jumped from a range of $7.3 million to $29.9 million at the end of 2020 to a range of $31.6 million to $75.6 million a year later.
"A reminder to Senator Mullin (whose net worth, by the way, is over $30 million) and to all the greedy CEOs and their mouthpieces in Congress: You come after labor, we come after you," the Teamsters account tweeted soon after that.
In a post-hearing tweet of his own, Mullin reiterated his belief that workers should be allowed to decide whether to join a union through private ballots. Along with the tweet was a video clip from the hearing that excluded his verbal sparring with O'Brien.
Mullin, who had served in the House since 2013, was elected in November to the Senate. In 2014, a congressional watchdog found that Mullin had violated House ethics rules by personally advertising for his family's Oklahoma plumbing businesses and serving on their boards. The watchdog report also found that Mullin had earned more outside his House income than was allowed.
In 2021, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Mullin made headlines for attempting to enter Afghanistan and reportedly threatening staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan when they would not allow Mullin to skirt the country's laws to do so.
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This was a major throwdown, even by modern congressional dysfunction standards.
www.commondreams.org /news/sean-o-brien-markwayne-mullin-class-war-senate-hearing
'Class War' Erupts at Hearing as Union Leader and GOP Senator Exchange Verbal Blows
Kenny StancilMar 08, 2023 2-3 minutes 3/8/2023
Sparks flew at a congressional hearing Wednesday when International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien told Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma—a multimillionaire whose family previously owned five non-union plumbing companies—that "we hold greedy CEOs like yourself accountable."
The exchange happened during a hearing convened by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont—chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions—titled "Defending the Right of Workers to Organize Unions Free from Illegal Corporate Union-Busting."
Watch:
Asked by O'Brien how much he made from his plumbing business, Mullin claimed, "I kept my salary down at about 50,000 a year because I invested every penny into it."
But in 2013, then-Rep. Mullin reportedly pocketed more than $600,000 from the companies in violation of House ethics rules and federal laws limiting how much outside income members of Congress are allowed to receive.
Although Mullin transferred ownership of the companies to his family, he continued to serve as a board member and chief advertiser while raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As O'Brien pointed out on social media, Mullin saw his reported net worth surge from between $7.3 million and $29.9 million at the end of 2020 to between $31.6 million and $75.6 million after he sold his family's plumbing companies in late 2021.
"Don't let them distract you," O'Brien tweeted . "Unions create jobs, make work safer, and put more money in workers' pockets. Most importantly, everything we do is to improve the lives of our members. I wonder if some others can say the same about their constituents?"
Sanders, for his part, declared at the conclusion of Wednesday's hearing that "there's a class war going on whether we want to recognize it or not."
"People on top have the money, they have the power," said Sanders. "They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to prevent ordinary workers from coming together to fight for dignity."
O'Brien must be an idiot.
Of course O'Brien makes far more than the average UPS feeder driver. O'Brien probably makes more than Mullin. That is the way Unions work. You don't want to be a member; you want to be the Union Boss; or one of their chief underlings.
O'Brien created his own job; and his underlings. All management positions. Members are clients; they don't work for the Union- but the Unions sure as hell want them to believe that.
Unions don't force their members to pay dues. No, they force the companies their members work for to take that money automatically out of each and every last worker paycheck and give it to the Union. Members don't have a choice in the matter. The Union removed that choice during contract negotiations with the company.
O'Brien isn't fucking labor. I heard that same BS from Union reps when I was a manager at Gibson Homans. They always used the "we" bullshit. Not one worker there could afford the cars those Union reps were driving. They were dress in suits worth more than most workers there made in a month. But it was always "we" this, and "we" that. When they threatened to go on strike it wasn't the Union reps that were going to suffer- just their members- who they supposedly cared so damn much about.
If Unions are so great they should have no problem with private ballots; and letting workers choose whether or not they want to join.
There is no bigger parasite than a Union boss, he literally makes his money from stealing from the workers. Except maybe the kickbacks he gets from organized crime.
Mark Wayne Mullin did some lying during that exchange. So the Union President called him out, good for him.
What lies were that?
Read the article.
www.wonkette.com /markwayne-mullin-there-s-no-fighting-in-here-this-is-the-war-room
Markwayne Mullin, There's No Fighting In Here, This Is The War Room!
Doktor Zoom 8-10 minutes 3/9/2023
We keep forgetting that rightwing dipshit Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) is now a US Senator, having won the election last fall to fill out the term of retired snowball-thrower Jim Inhofe. Mullin was a ridiculous schmuck when he was in the House, bloviating about people who were too "physically fit" to be using food stamps and failing to be Rambo in Afghanistan . Now he's off to a glorious career of being ridiculous in the Senate.
During a hearing on union organizing rights yesterday in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Mullin got into a shouty hissyfit at Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, demanding that the union president "shut your mouth" and generally demonstrating why unions are very bad, since their presidents insist on not kowtowing to very important freshman Republican senators.
Committee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) had called the hearing in hopes of building bipartisan support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would make unionizing businesses easier, so Mullin figured some anti-union grandstanding was in order. He started out by saying he has nothing against unions, and that in fact "Some of my very good friends work for unions. They work hard and do a good job." Then they all go back to the storehouse where Republicans also keep their best Black friends for rhetorical safekeepiing.
Mullin then recalled how in the olden days of 2009, union pipefitters had tried to intimidate him and his non-union plumbing business into unionizing, and my goodness they were such thugs! Fortunately, Mullin is a man's man — a Mixed Martial Arts man's man even! — and was not afraid of getting into a fight, he told O'Brien:
The union members even picketed and chanted "shame on Mullin," as if he had anything to be ashamed of!
O'Brien started to reply, but Mullin interrupted, saying that in 2019 O'Brien's salary was a princely $190,000, equivalent to pocket change for big companies' CEOS but still a lot of money to ordinary folks. Then Mullin started listing average pay for various jobs, and it was outrageous how O'Brien is paid anything at all since he doesn't do anything, nothing at all.
Mullin was building up a good head of performative rage by then, and it quickly got stupider. This is where we're going to break in and give you the video, via MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes":
Sanders tried to admonish Mullin to let O'Brien answer the question, but was ignored because Mullin wanted to really belabor (haha, it is a pune, or play on words) the vast salary difference between UPS drivers' $35K a year and O'Brien's $190K in 2019.
Funny, Mullin didn't mention that UPS CEO Carol Tome's total compensation in 2021 was $27.6 million , which is rather more than the union leader's.
We have to wonder if O'Brien was going to mention CEO pay, with that "framing" bit, but he never got there, because Mullin started going apeshit and haranguing him. O'Brien muttered, "Oh, tough guy," yeesh it got yelly then:
Oh, hold on, that's not right. More like this:
It was at least nice of Mullin to admit he wasn't asking O'Brien for information; he was making a speech at him. Mullin and Sanders went back and forth a bit about whether it was a real question or a rhetorical one, and eventually O'Brien got the chance to talk about his actual job:
We would now like to take a short movie break, for illustrative purposes.
Again, the conversation turned to what the heck unions are even good for, apart from very dated movie references:
Mullin protested that now O'Brien was out of line and demanded Sanders send him to the principal's office, and O'Brien joked, "So we're even!" But this is also where Mother Jones hops in with some facty-checky stuff. $50,000 in salary, huh?
Also too, as O'Brien pointed out on Twitter, Mullin did OK when he sold his family plumbing business, when he saw his "reported assets balloon from a range of $7.3 million to $29.9 million at the end of 2020 to a range of $31.6 million to $75.6 million" in 2021.
O'Brien also tweeted another part of his testimony, discussing why unions matter:
As his rant time ran out, Mullin closed by asking O'Brien why, if he's such a friend of workers, he's against "right to work" laws, but he didn't give O'Brien a chance to answer, and that showed him!
Of course, O'Brien did discuss "right to work" laws at another point in his testimony, snarkily pointing out that they're the sole labor policy supported by half the members on the committee, and adding that they "lower wages, create substandard benefits and erode workers’ rights in every state where they’re passed."
And he didn't even brag about his willingness to fistfight anyone.
"Ultimately Mullin said O'Brien's behavior at the hearing showed how union leaders tried to intimidate employees when unionizing a business.
"The issue is, if you're really for the employee, then why are you against right to work? Why are you against private ballots?" Mullin said, adding, "I'm not anti-union, but when you don't want to have a private ballot, that's not intimidating?"
Every word about the intimidation of workers and other union dirty tricks is true. No one profits except the union bosses, especially when they call for a strike.