Facebook post from Vote No says the following is from Sean:
YOU CANNOT SILENCE THE RANKIN FILE
UPS negotiations resume tomorrow and an important member of the team will be noticeably absent. ...
Last Friday, Hoffa expelled Local 89 Business Agent Mike R from the negotiating committee. Mike’s crime? He was communicating with the members about what was going on in negotiations. I’ve known Mike for many years. I nominated him for the negotiating committee. He’s a good man and a good Teamster, but that doesn’t matter to Hoffa.
Sadly, Mike isn’t the first example of Hoffa playing games with the UPS contract. Another person who’s been missing from negotiations is Fred Z.
Before I took the job as UPS Director. I made it clear to Hoffa that we needed to have ALL hands on deck to win the best possible contract. That meant reaching out to locals who didn’t vote for Hoffa. That meant reaching out to Fred. After our first meeting it became clear that we had the same goal of building a strong Teamsters union and winning a strong contract for our hard working members at UPS.
As we all know, Hoffa is a man of words, not actions. So when he saw I was actually doing what I said and that I wouldn’t back down. He fired me. On Friday, Brother Rankin met the same fate.
Hoffa doesn’t have the skill or the will to fight for a good contract. Why? Because Hoffa’s scared of the membership. It’s something he has in common with UPS.
UPS knows that if our union mobilizes the power of 1 million Teamsters, there is nothing we can’t accomplish. But instead Hoffa wants our members to be in the dark and sit on the sidelines while he decides their future. It’s unacceptable.
There is still time for Hoffa to right this ship. If Hoffa stops playing petty games and takes real action to involve Teamster members, then we can fight for a good contract. But in the meantime, we can’t depend on him. We have to organize and take this fight to UPS ourselves.
