Ken Paff: TDU and New Labor Insurgency

[OT+]

[Watcher745]

I read Paff’s pre Labor Notes report or should I say his explanation of TDU as it stands at present . Seemed a little defensive to me . Having read TDU’s publications for years I have to ask just how would Convoy/Voice have reported 206,000 fake new members , NDA’s on UPS contract , millions for settlement in racial lawsuit , dinner with Trump , giving Trump our headquarters for press conference, hiring Nixon Peabody to sue retiree’s, threatening a senator ……..etc. IF HOFFA WAS STILL PRESIDENT ?
Can you respond to that question Ken ? Maybe someone will ask you that in public at Labor Notes .

[WTF891]

I started reading this and thought the author needed to put the crack pipe down. Scrolling back to the top I realized it was Ken Paff reading and writing his own press clippings. Fire the pipe up again Ken, no one else is that high on your self promoting bullshit.

[Gimliboston9]

Anything owed to him was negated when he endorsed the opposite of everything we possibly owed him for .

[David Brad Bishop]

"Under new Teamster leadership, strategies for building worker power through rank-and-file power are spreading through the union, including vigorous contract campaigns; practice picketing; coordinated bargaining; the lining up of multiple contracts to maximize worker leverage; picket line extensions to build strike solidarity across Teamster locals; and organizing in core industries with member organizers; to name a few."

None of these strategies and tactics and are new. Don't get me wrong, they're great. I wish them all the best. But it's the same playbook that's been tried and attempted for decades. It's all just a lot easier said than done, especially when you're dealing with 400+ autonomous local unions who all have different agendas and/or hate one another. Given how things have gone since the OZ/TDU takeover, I'm guessing they're learning this lesson the hard way.

[Gimme_Danger]

These might be tried and true methods, but hardly ones that have been utilized for decades. The previous 22 years were known more for complacency or worse.

[Faust]

Ken Paff is a $5 whore!

[OT+]

C.M. Lewis (@thehousered) X (1).jpg
The quiet part said aloud

[DanaCos]

Everyone here owes Ken Paff.

I owe him what? I worked almost daily on a movement to expose corruption in the union. He used our work to propel his organization and stabbed us in the back. How is he living now in California? When do we get to see his salary at TDU?

[Gimme_Danger]

You focus solely on 2013, whereas people like Ken were dealing with some big issues from the mid 1970s onwards.

[DanaCos]

So, where were you in the 70's, 80's, 90's and on? You think showing up at the eleven hour is fine? You were a supporter of his since being a Teamster?

Let me TRY to keep this brief. In 2013 (NOT 2018) is when we all got tired of Hoffa's crap and the people who supported his criminal activity of selling us out on contracts that were substandard. I never came out and bragged about what I did and didn't do. I can say without a doubt that I single handedly turned a pure Hoffa Local in to a Hoffa hating local in less than year. I printed and distributed close to 100 fliers telling members of the atrocities that our union was bestowing on us all the while a certain number of Hoffa Suckers tried their best to destroy us. Fast forward to the next contract, these same Hoffa Suckers all the sudden have these epiphany moments where they come out on social media and Youtube to tell the members how bad Hoffa was. Well, now we have 3 men who retired after fighting the same people we did and longer than I have that want the truth be told about how phony TDU has become and set the record straight about the past so we don't repeat it with the very person who robbed us of our worth in these contracts. That's why when we see a guy they call ****** Nutter or something from Boston tell us how Sean O'Brien is the solution to our problems, we cringe because O'Brien was the real reason why our union suffered so much loss. AND, for TDU and Fred Zuckerman to hand a guy like this the stage that we built is and always will be infuriating. That's why I said before, I will NEVER stop talking about 2013 and the nut jobs like yourself. You wouldn't know or understand what I have been through and that probably goes for the founders of TeamsterLink too, they've been through lot.

[PreloaderZzz]

Apparently calling for a ceasefire makes TDU a “political vehicle”. Shouldn’t we be doing member education around important issues? Teamsters are one of the major holdouts among unions calling for a ceasefire.

[Tony R Cochran]

This statement was unanimously approved by all ITOC members who read Ken Paff's article. We had a vote on our Discord server.

The narrative paints a vivid picture of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) as a driving force behind positive changes within our union. However, upon closer examination, significant shortcomings and criticisms emerge that challenge this portrayal.

One glaring omission is the failure to address the profound impact of AI, automation, and mass layoffs on industries represented by the Teamsters Union. Traditional labor roles are increasingly at risk, leading to widespread job losses. Despite this reality, TDU has remained largely silent on these critical issues. Moreover, TDU's support for President Sean O'Brien, who falsely claimed to have solved the AI and automation problem at UPS, is troubling. In reality, UPS is implementing mass automation and layoffs, rendering O'Brien's claims entirely false. By aligning themselves with leaders who misrepresent the challenges faced by unionized workers, TDU is not only failing to uphold its purported commitment to worker empowerment but actively undermining its credibility.

Furthermore, the narrative sidesteps a damning revelation: leaders supported by TDU have hired a union-busting law firm to target retired Teamsters who set up an online platform for member expression. This egregious action directly contradicts TDU's purported commitment to worker empowerment and raises serious questions about leadership integrity.

Additionally, the story falls short in addressing broader societal issues impacting workers beyond traditional labor union activities, such as income inequality and racial justice. By narrowing its focus exclusively on factional union matters, TDU misses opportunities to address the root causes of systemic injustices facing the working class and marginalized communities.

Moreover, TDU's failure to address allegations of racial discrimination in the firing of organizers further tarnishes its credibility. The argument, supported by evidence, suggests that the organizers were targeted largely due to their race, yet TDU has not taken a clear stance on this issue, raising concerns about its commitment to equity and justice within our union.

Furthermore, the portrayal of TDU as the sole catalyst for recent successes within our union overlooks the contributions of other actors and contextual factors. Recognizing these contributions is essential for providing a balanced assessment of TDU's role.

Independent Teamsters Organizing Committee

[Tony R Cochran]

I started reading this and thought the author needed to put the crack pipe down. Scrolling back to the top I realized it was Ken Paff reading and writing his own press clippings. Fire the pipe up again Ken, no one else is that high on your self promoting bullshit.

What I personally find most troubling is that Paff does not use the words "AI" "automation" or "layoffs" anywhere in this article. Often what is omitted is the most revealing. IBT/TDU (and DSA) leadership does not want to discuss the fact that huge sections of organized labor are in big trouble. The attacks on UPS workers are a part of a larger offensive against workers, especially unionized workers. UPS Teamsters are the largest private sector bargaining unit that operate under the same NMA in North America. Eroding that, shrinking that down from 330,000 to 200,000 then 100,000 or less in the next 10 years will have a devastating impact on the health and welfare fund, the pension funds, and more importantly on workers collectively organizing.

[TheMilitantTeamster]

Mixmax, I understand TDU clearly

“The conception that politics is not for workers had its own history. The initial members of the TDU, founded in 1976, were middle class youth sent into the Teamsters union by an organization called the International Socialists (IS), which had emerged in 1962 out of the Socialist Party of America, led by Shachtman, a former American Trotskyist who moved sharply to right after breaking with the Fourth International in 1940.

The IS was centered on college campuses, especially at the University of California, Berkeley, where Ken Paff, one of the founders of the TDU and its national organizer until 2021, was a student, and where the leading figure of the IS, Hal Draper, worked. Draper imagined his tactic of entering the unions unique in world history. “No Marxist group has ever carried on any systematic revolutionary work in the trade unions,” he ignorantly declared.[6] In fact, Marxists (beginning with Karl Marx!) have carried out work in the unions. But Marxists have done so to elevate workers’ consciousness of the class struggle.

….

The TDU won a certain following among the rank and file, claiming perhaps 8,000 worker-members at its peak. At times, TDU members showed physical courage. In one case, Pete Camarata (1946–2014), a Detroit warehouse worker, was beaten nearly to death after criticizing union President Frank Fitzsimmons at the Teamsters national convention in Las Vegas in 1976. In 1983, a group created specifically to intimidate union dissidents, the Brotherhood of Loyal Americans and Strong Teamsters (BLAST), attacked a TDU meeting in Cleveland, taking over the podium, ripping down banners and running TDU members out of the building. According to government records, the BLAST attackers in Cleveland included “the presidents of two Teamsters locals, a local vice president, two secretary-treasurers, three union trustees, one organizer and at least 10 business agents for the international union.”[8]

The problem was not lack of courage among individuals like Camarata, a worker brought up through Jimmy Hoffa’s old Detroit Local 299. The problem was the perspective of the IS, which dominated the Teamster reform movement. The orientation of the TDU is now, and has always been, to the bureaucracy, never the working class—all the rhetoric about rank-and-file power notwithstanding.

The IS operated from the perspective that workers were hopelessly backward, and that the most that could be achieved would be to pressure allegedly progressive sections of the union bureaucracy”

[TheMilitantTeamster]

In other shorter words Paff has always thought of workers as idiots needing TDU to baby talk to them

[TheMilitantTeamster]

Have you ever met him?

Fortunately no

[The Direct Line]

So did Ken Paff pave the way for TDU members to have a group chat called "Future IBT Leaders".
Or did he pave the way to ban actual Teamsters from attending the TDU convention.
Or did he pave the way to whisper into the ear of DSAer and TDU co-chair Sean Orr's to table an "open bargaining" resolution at last year's TDFU convention,

He sure did run his mouth about Teamsters Mobilize when he commented on a Facebook post that a Teamster made. "Yes, we did not eliminate 50 years of corporation driving down the labor movement,..And, as you predicted, the UPS Teamsters all agreed with you and voted to reject the agreement...But now, with Teamsters Mobilize, you will be able to do all those things."

I understand that he did very important work in the past but when he allowed TDU to be the junior partner in the OZ administration he lost all credibility.