Teamsters president Sean O’Brien told Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to find out why union members support Trump rather than criticize them.
The Democrat Party was built on the backs of the labor movement. For years, we have fought arm-in-arm with Democrats at the picket line and the ballot box to not only ensure fair treatment, pay and conditions for union members, but for all Americans – securing 40-hour weeks, weekends, Social Security, Medicare and health insurance. These benefits are now understood as commonsense protections, and America’s workers take these hard-fought rights for granted.
But for years, the Democrat Party has taken us for granted – claiming to support labor unions while refusing to wholeheartedly back legislation that would strengthen protections for America’s workers.
They will not acknowledge their role in contributing to the most pressing problems facing working families – massive costs that have made it harder to put food on the table, unlimited illegal immigration resulting in more jobs going to foreign-born workers and bad trade deals that have shipped our manufacturing sectors to China.
Nonetheless, unions across America continue to back Democrats and are providing them support – financial and otherwise – while most of these politicians prove themselves to be more of the same corporate-aligned elites that they claim to despise.........