BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:Indybay-18888333 SEQUENCE:19066488 CREATED:20260831T060000Z DESCRIPTION:Canadians Are Not The Enemy!\n9/8/26 STOP The Trade War NOW! \nTariffs & Trade War On Canada Attacks Unions & Working People On Both Sides of The Border\nFight The Billionaires & Capitalism Not Canadians\n\nRally & Speak Out At Port Of Oakland\n\nSeptember 8, 2026 12:00 Noon\nMiddle Harbor Shoreline Park\nPort Of Oakland\n2777 Middle Harbor Road, Oakland\n\nThe growing trade war between the US and Canada and the rest of the world is leading to more attacks on working people here and around the world.\nCanadians are not the enemy. It is the billionaires who run the US and the world who want to pit workers here against workers in Canada and around the world.\n\nThis trade war will hurt airline workers, hotel and tourist workers and workers both union and non-union who are connected to international trade. It is an attack on workers on border states and in California and the West Coast who will pay the costs of this anti-working class trade war with more inflation and union busting.\n\nAt the same time Trump, who is a racist and fascist is demanding that Canada no longer use French as one of their national languages. This fascist who is using ICE gestapo agents against Black and Brown immigrants is demanding that Canada start attacking their own people to get a trade deal. This use of trade war to create national divisions is part of the game book of fascists and Nazis.\n\nILWU port workers on the West Coast, Teamsters in the airlines and tourist workers are already facing the brunt of trade war along with increasing costs and inflation making it difficult to live and pay the bills.\n\nThe major decline of US capitalism is a direct result of the same billionaires outsourcing our industrial base to China to make more profits. Now the US cannot compete against Chinese electric cars and other products and the capitalist’s answer is to push the US toward economic and military confrontations while profiting from the war machine.\n\nWe need to mobilize NOW to stop the trade wars and join with working people in Canada, Mexico and around the world against the growing threat of world depression and the techno fascists and billionaires who run the US and the world. This is what the trade wars of the 1930’s brought at that time and this is on the agenda here unless working people organize and build a working class movement against economic and military wars abroad.\nWorking people and unions also need to organize now for a national general strike and for a mass democratic workers party that can challenge a system that is driving us toward depression and world war.\n\nInitiated by United Front Committee For A Labor Party\nwww.ufclp.org\n\nLabor Protests Trump's Trade War & Tariffs At Port Of Oakland\nhttps://youtu.be/AEzZyVboNVw\nLabor and community activists rallied at the Port Of Oakland to protest the trade war and tariffs. \nThey also met at a meeting in San Francisco to organize against the trade war and Teamsters \ntalked about the fight against the tariffs and opposition to support of the tariffs by IBT president \nSean O’Brien.\nAdditional Media:\nKill Tariffs Not Workers! Teamsters & ILWU Members Protest Tariffs & Trade War At The Port Of Oakland\nhttps://youtu.be/DdIzrM2B-9w\n\nTeamsters Canada Condemns New U.S. Tariffs\n\nhttps://teamsters.ca/blog/2026/08/22/teamsters-canada-condemns-new-u-s-tariffs/\n\nBy communications - August 22, 202610\n\nTeamsters Canada condemns the new round of U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian goods.\n\nThese measures will cost jobs on both sides of the border. Billionaires and corporate executives won’t feel a thing. Instead, Canadian and American workers will pay the price.\n\nConstantly shifting U.S. trade policy is its own kind of damage. No one can plan. Investment stalls, and workers are left wondering whether their plant or terminal will still be running next year.\n\nWe support Ottawa’s decision to respond with matching countermeasures. Canada cannot allow this treatment to go unanswered.\n\nRetaliation alone is not a plan for workers. Any support package must reach workers directly. Examples include income support, EI flexibility, and training. Ottawa must not make the mistake of sending blank cheques to companies and hoping they trickle down.\n\nOur 130,000 members expect nothing less.\n\n– François Laporte, President, Teamsters Canada\n\nNational Teamsters Slate Fearless Stand Up Against Trade War On Canada \nUnity Of US & Canadian Teamsters Against Trade War. \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXu_P1bY7L0 \n\nThe Price of Betrayal: A Dual Statement on the Economic Destruction of Teamster Jobs and the Failure of International Leadership\n1. The Fractured Front: A Mandate for New Leadership\nThe International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) stands at a historic crossroads where the economic survival of 1.3 million members is being traded for political access. Under the current administration, the strategic front of our union has been fractured by an "Old Guard" leadership culture that prizes blind loyalty over shop-floor power. Sean O’Brien is feasting on the dues of workers whose jobs he essentially signed away, utilizing "Irishman-style" intimidation and retaliation to suppress the voices of the rank-and-file. This culture of thuggery has left our members vulnerable at the exact moment they face an unprecedented corporate and political onslaught. To restore our Brotherhood, the Hooker-Palmer "Fearless Slate" offers the only professional alternative—a leadership team committed to militant transparency rather than backroom deals. The necessity of this shift is written in the pink slips of tens of thousands of Teamsters, the direct result of O’Brien’s failed political gambles.\n2. The "Tariff Toll": Analyzing the Systematic Erosion of Teamster Jobs\nThe trade policies enacted since early 2025 are not mere political talking points; they are direct economic threats to the logistics, manufacturing, and package delivery sectors. These tariffs have acted as a "Tariff Toll" that corporations are paying with our members' livelihoods. By disrupting the integrated North American supply chain, these protectionist measures have provided industry giants like UPS with the perfect pretext to accelerate their "Network of the Future"—a restructuring plan designed to automate 80% of inside jobs and bypass the human labor that built their profits.\nImpact of Tariff Restructuring on Key Sectors (2025-2026)\nIndustry Sector\nSpecific Impact/Data Point\nStrategic Consequence for Workers\nUPS (Logistics)\n20,000 layoffs in 2025; 30,000 additional cuts announced for 2026.\nCorporate reconfiguration for lower volumes; closure of hubs like Swan Island to fast-track automation.\nTrucking\nClass 8 tractor costs up $35,000; cross-border freight volume plunged 14.5%.\nEquipment upgrades become cost-prohibitive; traffic drops in auto/ag sectors cripple smaller carriers.\nManufacturing\n68,000 to 108,000 total jobs lost due to raw material costs.\nPlant closures and shift reductions in the Midwest and South as production costs for steel/aluminum spike.\nTeamsters Canada\n84,000 jobs shed in Feb 2026; 43,000 manufacturing jobs lost by end of 2025.\nRetaliatory tariffs and reduced demand erode confidence in cross-border investment and job security.\nThe "So What?" Layer: These staggering losses prove that the "historic" protections promised during the 2023 contract negotiations were nothing more than union fiction. O’Brien’s administration has stood by in "guilty silence" as 50,000 to 70,000 Teamster-represented roles vanish. When the union leadership fails to stop a "Network of the Future" that replaces members with robots, it has ceased to be a union and has become a partner in corporate restructuring.\n3. The Silence of the "200k Club": Accountability in the IBT Executive Suite\nWhile our members are standing in breadlines, the executive suite in Washington D.C. is awash in member dues. There is a disgusting disconnect between the driver facing a layoff and a bureaucracy that has prioritized its own financial expansion. This is not just bad policy; it is a parasitic caste feasting on the rank-and-file.\nThe financial reality of the O’Brien administration exposes the depth of this betrayal:\nThe Salary Surge: The IBT "200k Club" has ballooned from 160 members in 2023 to 213 in 2024.\nExecutive Compensation: While members faced mass layoffs, Sean O’Brien pocketed $431,000 in 2024. He isn't even the top earner; Thomas Gesualdi pulled in a staggering $456,638.\nThe Resource Drain: $153 million—71% of all member dues—was consumed by the bureaucracy for salaries and benefits. In stark contrast, a mere $23 million was returned to the members in strike benefits.\nThe Height of Hypocrisy: O’Brien continues to align with politicians who voted against the American Rescue Plan, despite the fact that his own New England pension received a massive bailout from that very $36 billion fund.\nTo protect this lucrative status quo, the administration uses "authoritarian and vindictive" behavior to stifle dissent. This includes the solicitation of "forced endorsement letters" from local officers who fear that refusing O’Brien will put a target on their backs. This internal suppression ensures that the "200k Club" remains insulated from the economic pain they have facilitated.\n4. The MAGA Pivot: Evaluating Toxic Political Alignments\nAligning a labor organization with documented union-busters is a strategic blunder that borders on malpractice. O’Brien’s "elbow rubbing" with Donald Trump and the MAGA right is not pragmatism; it is a surrender of our core mission. By validating leaders who joke about scabbing, the administration has signaled that political "photo ops" are more important than member safety.\nThe "So What?" of these toxic alliances is revealed in these clear betrayals:\nDonald Trump: O’Brien praises a leader who stripped TSA workers of contracts, attacked federal unions on "national security" grounds, and nominated union-busting lawyers like Crystal Carey to the NLRB.\nLori Chavez-DeRemer: O’Brien aggressively pushed her as the "only choice" for Labor Secretary, only for her to immediately pivot away from the PRO Act and its protections against "right-to-work" laws.\nThe Live-Line Betrayal: While O’Brien seeks favor, Trump and Elon Musk were caught on a "live line" joking about the "firing" of striking workers. For a Teamster President to rub elbows with men laughing about the destruction of the right to strike is the ultimate betrayal.\nThe Result of O’Brien’s Right-Wing Flattery\nStalled Progress: Zero movement on the PRO Act or the repeal of right-to-work.\nCorporate Capture of OSHA: The appointment of a former UPS/Amazon safety officer—companies with notoriously poor safety records—to lead the nation's workplace safety regulator.\nPicket Line Intimidation: The presence of ICE on Teamster picket lines to intimidate strikers, a direct result of the hostile political environment O’Brien has legitimized.\n5. The Fearless Alternative: Restoring Bottom-Up Power\nThe path forward requires a total rejection of corporate unionism and a return to militant, transparent advocacy. The Hooker-Palmer "Fearless Slate" is dedicated to dismantling the top-heavy bureaucracy and returning power to the shop floor. We believe a union is only as strong as its rank-and-file, not its executive salary list.\nThe Fearless Slate platform rests on three pillars:\nTransparent Bargaining: We will end the "Irishman" era of behind-closed-doors deals. Every negotiation will be open to the members it affects.\nResource Reallocation: We will stop the drain to the "200k Club" and keep resources at the local level to fight grievances and organize.\nWeaponized Solidarity: No more "Teamsters vs. Everybody." we will form a unified front with the AFL-CIO, SEIU, UAW, and every labor organization to fight the billionaire class.\nTo transform the International, we must trigger an election this Fall by securing 5% of the delegates (80 delegates) at the Las Vegas convention to bypass O’Brien’s attempts to shut down opposition. Our math is concrete: if we get just 400 members in every local to turn out, we hit the 160,000 votes needed to dump this administration. We don't want political favors or "elbow rubbing"; we want a union that looks like its members and fights for their jobs. Join us. Be Fearless. \n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/08/30/18888333.php SUMMARY:Canadians Are Not The Enemy! STOP The Trade War NOW! No Tariffs & Trade War With Canada LOCATION:Middle Harbor Shoreline Park\nPort Of Oakland\n2777 Middle Harbor Road, Oakland URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/08/30/18888333.php DTSTART:20260908T190000Z DTEND:20260908T200000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR