Name: Teamsters President Sean O'Brien | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #536
Uploaded: 2024-10-07T17:27:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Teamsters President Sean O'Brien | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #536' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-10-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Teamsters President Sean O'Brien | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #536' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-10-07. Transcript available.

Teamsters President Sean O'Brien | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #536

I have some new tour dates to tell you about. This week I'll be in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota,
La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Moline, Illinois, Colorado
Springs, Casper,
Wyoming, Billings, Montana, Missoula, Montana, Bloomington, Indiana, Columbus,
Ohio, Champaign,
Grand Rapids, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas. All tickets through
TheoVaughn.com.
Slash T-O-U-R. And thank you for your support. Today's guest is the president
of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters. He's a fourth generation Teamster himself, and he's
from Boston. I'm really
excited about spending time today with Mr. Sean O'Brien.
I love you.
I never been in a union, I don't think.
What about SAG-AFTRA? You did some acting.
Oh, yeah, that's right. I had to get in SAG-AFTRA one time. Yeah. So I guess I
was
in that union. I used to work at a pizza joint, and one guy was getting fired,
and we're like,
you can't fire, if you fire him, you got to fire all of us.
That's real. That's what it's all about.
And the guy, he just fired all of us. Yeah. And he was right, actually. Mr.
Wayne, he was
the owner, and he was right, dude. We were horrible workers. We was drinking
and just deep
frying everything in there. Anyway- That shouldn't be a terminable offense.
I like your attitude. We needed you. Sean O'Brien, you're president of the Teamsters
Union, right?
Yes, sir.
Is that the term?
Yes, it's International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Okay. And what is a Teamster?
Well, Teamsters started out traditional trucking, truck drivers. They were
horse and buggies back in
the day, and then evolved into trucking, and then we've evolved into, we
represent everybody from
airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between, so it's not just a trucking
union.
Our largest employer is United Parcel Service, representing 340,000 Teamsters
nationwide.
United Parcel Service?
Yeah, UPS.
Okay, UPS.
And then, you know, we do all the, provide all the transportation needs for
motion pictures,
trade shows, public sector. We're pretty diverse in large union, 1.3 million
members nationwide
and in Canada.
In the Teamsters Union?
Yes, sir.
And so they got, so it was a team of horses, that's why the name is, is that it?
Yeah, Horse and Buggies, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, they had teams pulling horses and buggies. We've been around since 1903.
Okay.
So you can see how transportation has changed over the years, but, you know, it's
a great
organization. I'm fourth generation Teamster.
Yeah. Oh, so you're, and are you the first president of your family that was
ever in?
Yeah, yeah. All my family members, just rank and file members, went to work
every day.
I started out in a construction yard in Boston, a rigging company hauling cranes
around, and
I just moved up the ladder, became a shop steward, and became a business agent
for Local 25 in
Boston, and just kept moving along.
Nice, dude.
Yeah.
And a union is what?
A union is, you know, we represent working people.
Okay.
We make certain, we collectively bargain for our members. We make certain that
we protect
them in the workplace, process all their grievances, but more importantly,
organize workers throughout
the country that want to be unionized, and we've been very successful doing
that, and we
just want to represent working people. We know 1.3 million right now, hopefully
we'll be 2 million
in the near future.
Amen. And yeah, because I know unions are responsible for the work week, right?
Right. So unions based 40-hour work week. Look, the unions have set the bar.
Even non-union
people benefit when you organize, and, you know, we've organized in every
industry, but we're
responsible for overtime. We're responsible for the 40-hour work week. We're
responsible for
the weekend.
A lot of people don't know that, you know?
A lot of people don't know, so, you know.
Yeah. God, thank you. Well.
But if we do have to work the weekend, we're going to get double time.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and now, didn't they just make a law that it's going to be over, it won't
get taxed?
Well, that's a campaign promise from President Trump, I believe.
Oh, so it's just, it's not a definite.
So, you know, as you know, promises sometimes don't come to fruition, so, but
it is recorded,
so we'll use it against whoever said it.
How pivotal is our unions in the American industry?
Look, we built the middle class. We built America. Unfortunately, as you know,
once big
business gets involved, private equity of the world, or there's big money to be
made, everybody
forgets. They get amnesia on who actually is responsible, and there was such a
decline in
the 80s because, you know, politicians put in some bad regulation. I mean, I
can speak for the
teams as they passed trucking deregulation, and if I could put the numbers to
it, we had 400,000
members alone just in the freight industry, and when they passed trucking deregulation,
we lost 400,000
members, companies went bankrupt, and pension funds took a hit, so.
What happened, though? Like, when you say deregulation, what do you mean by it?
Well, you know, the whole industry was regulated, so every company had rates
that they had to adhere
to.
Okay, to follow a certain set of rules.
Yeah, and then once deregulation passed, it was a race to the bottom, and, you
know,
unfortunately, that hurt us over three or four decades, and now there's such a
opportunity
because there's so much corporate greed out there where these white-collar
crime syndicates
known as corporate America are just, all they care about is the bottom line of
their balance
sheet, and, you know, we've been fighting hard for the last four or five years
to expose
how greedy these CEOs, these corporations are, but also how corruptible the
political system
is.
You know, it's funny, you know, before you always had Democrats fighting for
working
people and, you know, Republicans.
Now we kind of see a switch where working people feel like, number one, they've
been left
behind by the Democratic Party.
Two, you know, the Republicans say they want to be working class, represent the
working class.
They have an opportunity to do it, but, you know, I think we've got a huge
opportunity
to organize, and we've been exposing them, and we've been fighting, and, you
know, our
biggest opponent right now is Amazon, and we're going to crush them.
Oh, because Amazon, my mom drives, is an Amazon worker.
Is she?
Yeah.
So she's an independent contractor.
She drives for them.
Yeah, yeah.
She delivers stuff for Amazon.
So I'll tell you the difference, right?
Okay.
You look at our UPS drivers.
We just negotiated the largest collective bargaining agreement.
UPS is the largest teams to contract in the country, and they're a very
difficult company
to deal with.
However, our drivers are direct employees.
Our members are direct employees at UPS.
And once you're through a four-year progression as a driver, you're making
almost $50 an hour
free, full medical, and a pension that you can actually retire off of.
And Amazon hides behind an independent contractor model where they pay their
drivers about $19.50
to $20 per hour.
That's the difference.
Oh, yeah.
My mom's asking me for allowance.
What we're doing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, as she should.
Yeah, that's true.
She brought your ass into this world.
Yeah, you got to pay the tariff.
Yeah, and you don't want to piss your mother off.
Believe me, I got a strong Irish Catholic mother who brought up her three
younger brothers
in a housing project in Boston, and she had three just like me.
And, you know, she's the toughest one I know.
And that's the only person I'm afraid of, really, to be honest with you.
Really?
In Boston?
Yeah, it's like.
Oh, some of the women in Boston, dude.
I got to, yeah.
But my mother's like petting a python.
You know, you give a moment, she's going to squeeze the life out of you.
But I love and respect her.
Oh, for sure.
She's the best.
And if a mouse goes missing around her.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, you get the head nod.
The problem, you know, you get the head nod from my mother.
It's like, she'll go, oh, nice.
Head nod, done.
You're done.
That's it.
You're done.
Yeah.
It's like someone put a hit on you.
Yeah, my mother, yeah, she delivers for Amazon.
Yeah, I don't know how many hours a week she works, but she delivers for Amazon.
How hard is it to get a group of workers to unionize, like at a company that's
already
like pre-existing like that?
Well, we're doing it right now.
Like, so Amazon hides behind this bullshit independent contractor model.
So they'll third-party leasing arrangement with a company, probably what your
mom's working
for, and they try and say that they're not employees.
We just want a big case in California where it's called Joint Employer, where
it's a masquerade,
where Amazon controls the other company.
Amazon dictates the rules.
Amazon dictates where you buy your vehicles and everything else, but they don't
take any
responsibility when the shit hits the fan.
So we actually won that case recently, and we're organizing all over the place.
But what we're doing is we're striking for recognition.
We're going in there, getting the majority of authorization cards signed by
folks like
your mom, and then we just strike them and hold them out, and it's working.
We've got, because of that victory we had with exposing Amazon with the
independent contractor
scam, we get the potential to organize your mom and 300,000 other people.
Wow.
So we've allocated tremendous funding to do this, and look, Amazon, the one
thing about
the Teamsters Union and us, we're not good-looking, clearly, right?
Yeah, well.
But, you know, we don't have the deep.
In some cultures.
We don't have, yeah.
We don't have the deep pockets, but we've got, you know, fight.
We've got intestinal fortitude, and we're not afraid.
We're not afraid to lose, because we're supposed to lose anyways, right?
When you're not afraid to lose, I mean.
Yeah, you've got nothing to lose, man.
Nothing to lose, yeah.
Yeah.
And it's important, because we set these industry standards negotiating these
contracts
so people like your mother, people that aren't organized, will see the value of
becoming a
union member.
And look, there's always people that have something to say no matter what.
You know, you know, you're doing great.
You have a great show.
You've made tremendous success.
There's going to be someone that is jealous and doesn't, you know, just wants
to attack
you.
Yeah.
And we're trying to change that philosophy.
We're trying to change that image.
And look, we're out there, just want to help people.
We want to take on schooly odd bullies, and we want to put them on their knees,
you know?
Oh, I hope you take the kneecaps off some of these perverts, dude.
Yeah.
You know?
That's how I really feel.
And also, a lot of these, like, a lot of the tech industry came along, and just
because
they're an app or they're a website, they act like they're not an employer, I
guess.
Oh, that's the biggest scam in the world.
You got Uber, you got Lyft, you've got Google, you've got all these tech
companies.
And the sad part is, you know, these politicians that claim to be out there
fighting for work
and people are bought and fucking sold by these companies.
Oh, it's crazy.
It's disgusting.
I love it because my job is, and again, I'm wearing the shirt, right?
Because we are fucking fighting with everybody.
Yeah.
And we have to because, you know, we have to be someone's conscience, and we're
going
to be their conscience.
These big tech companies.
Yeah.
How does the Teamsters afford attorneys and stuff to be able to fight those
battles?
Well, you know, we have members pay dues.
Okay.
So, you know, the dues money, obviously.
Finance is a whole operation.
You know, we are financially secure.
We have $400 million in a strike and defense fund, which means that we can
strike and, you
know, we can support a long-term strike, but also defend against any threat to
the organization.
That all comes from dues 