America’s Proto-Fascist Red Scare of 1917-21

BY PAUL STREET

 AUGUST 10, 2023
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Is This Tomorrow?, a 1947 anti-Communist comic book via Wikimedia Commons

Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (New York: Mariner, 2022).

As American as Cherry Pie

Those who think that fascism is impossible in the United States thanks to the nation’s supposed splendid and “exceptional” record of freedom, democracy, equality, decency, and respect for the rule of law[1] might want to read up on the vast dark undersides of American history. Slavery happened here, for two and a half centuries. Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement, and terrorism happened here for nearly a century. Native American removal and genocide happened here over three centuries.  Mass Black ghettoization took place in the last century and remains intact today. Racist mass arrest, imprisonment, and criminal branding has been happening for more than half a century.

From its genocidal and slave-based origins through its recurrent bloody repression and oppression of workers and radicals, its savage levelling and privatization of North American forests and prairies. its building of a giant authoritarian corporate system, its manufacture of vast urban Black ghettoes, its creation of a globally unmatched racist mass incarceration system, its ongoing police state brutalization of its minority populations,  its construction of a giant mass murderous and racist global empire, its direct and indirect murder of tens of millions of world citizens, and its creation of a massive surveillance state at home and abroad, the real, by means glorious record of “the American experience,” properly examined, suggests that in many ways fascism is, like violence, to paraphrase the 1960s Black radical H. Rap Brown, “as American as cherry pie.”[2]

As the heralded Black novelist Toni Morrison observed in a 1995 Howard university speech titled “Racism and Fascism,” “America has often preferred fascist solutions to political problems.”[3]

On the Brink, 1917-21

Fascism can’t happen here? It kind of did between 1917 and 1921, when the First World War and the Russian Bolshevik (socialist) Revolution provided “patriotic” pretext for American federal, state, and local government and right-wing anti-labor, anti-radical, and racist vigilantes to arrest, terrorize, beat, incarcerate, torture, and murder US pacifists, leftists, feminists, immigrants, Blacks, Jews, civil libertarians, and trade unionists from coast to coast. As Adam Hochshild shows in his remarkable latest book American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (New York: Mariner, 2022), the nation teetered on the brink of a proto-fascist dictatorship during and after the war. Armed white mobs torched Black churches and business and levelled whole Black communities, killing hundreds of African Americans.  The federal 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act and state-level versions of these draconian bills were used by prosecutors and judges to throw thousands into prison for voicing real or perceived opposition to the war. The US Army joined state militias, local gendarmes, vigilantes, and private detectives in bloodily repressing labor strikes driven by wartime inflation and labor demand.  Local police red squads and a new federal police state including a new Military Intelligence bureaucracy and the Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the notorious anti-radical Federal Bureau of Investigations [FBI]) and a censorial US Post Office combined with white nationalist outfits like the American Protective League and the American Legion to decimate the once radical US Left,  including the Industrial Workers of the World  and the Socialist Party. The US Departments of Justice Department and Immigration Bureau deported hundreds accused of leftist and antiwar sentiments.

Some of the repression Hochschild recounts reads like dark comedy: three German-Americans in Cincinnati convicted under the Espionage and Sedition Acts after the local Citizens Patriotic League hired private detectives who put a wire in a shoemakers’ shop to record them privately saying that the war was making “somebody rich;” a Boston Symphony conductor arrested on the pretext that his musical score contained secret messages to the German military; the arrest of playwright Eugene O’Neil because someone worried that the sun reflecting off his typewriter on a Cap Cod beach was actually O’Neil sending coded messages to German submarines.

But there’s little funny about the bigger and ugly story told in American Midnight. Pacifists and socialists swept up into local jails and military concentration camps during and after the war were beaten, stabbed, shackled to prison bars on their tip toes, jerked around with ropes around their necks, threatened with summary execution, and immersed in human waste. Some were subjected to “the water cure,” the precursor of contemporary waterboarding– an insidious form of torture developed by US interrogators in the imperial subjugation of the Philippines earlier in the century. Members of the anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World were beaten, tarred and feathered, and driven out into the wilderness to be dumped with warnings to never return to the industrial towns from which they were kidnapped. The veteran IWW organizer Frank Little was dragged from behind the back of a car and hung to death on a railway bridge outside Butte, Montana.

Talk about “fascist solutions to political problems”!

“Blacks Lived in Fear”…“Many Dead Bodies Were Thrown in the Mississippi River”

As so often in United States history, the worst violence was inflicted on Black people.  Here is one the many horrible stories told in American Midnight:

“The military made sure that, even in uniform, Blacks lived in fear.  At Camp Dodge, in Iowa, for example, all men stationed there were ordered to witness the hanging of three Black soldiers who had allegedly raped a young white woman…The 3,000 troops of the all-Black 92^nd Division in training at the camp were deliberately placed in the front ranks before the specially  constructed gallows.. ‘All were unarmed,’ reported one eyewitness, ‘while the white soldiers and officers were armed with rifles and revolvers.’ Horror-stricken, Black men who had hoped that serving in the military might led to a better life found themselves forced to watch what looked all too much like a lynching…It was a …shattering experience… ‘The cries of the condemned men echoed and echoed {a local newspaper reported]. Soon the shrieks of Negro soldiers, unwilling and terrified spectators, driven into a hysterical state, added to the sickening scene.’” (American Midnight, p. 115)

Lynchings? Hochschild describes many examples of that terrible practice deployed against Black Americans during and after the war (see pages 107-08, 114, 115, 138, 250-52).  He also records the lynching of a German American socialist coal miner (Robert Prager) in Illinois (pp. 157-58) and the attempted lynching of “Omaha’s unusually enlightened mayor, Edward Smith,” for trying to intervene against a white, Omaha, Nebrasksa, mob that burned down a courthouse containing a Black man accused of raping a white woman in the summer of 1919.

Omaha was the scene for one the many “white riots” – racist pogroms – that took place in more than two dozen US during the “red summer” of 1919. “The worst violence of all,” Hochschild notes:

“was in Phillips County, Arkansas. The killers included American Legion members who joined a sheriff’s posse, other vigilantes from outside the county, and 550 federal troops. There were at least 103 known Black deaths, but some estimates put the total number at double that or higher. One reason nobody could completely pin down the toll, in an echo of what happened in East St. Louis two years earlier, is that many dead bodies were thrown in the Mississippi River…The Justice Department made no move to investigate the leaders of the white mobs that instigated almost all the killings, instead looking for signs of IWW or Bolshevik influence among Black protesters” (p. 255).

American Midnight’s epilogue mentions a soul-chilling anti-Black pogrom in which white vigilantes and local authorities burned down Tulsa, Oklahoma’s unusually large and prosperous Black business district.  The fiery carnage left “more than 1,400 business and homes covering 35 blocks…in charred, smoking ruins” in late May and early June of 1921. The death toll reached 300, with nearly all the victims Black. “The National Guard arrested 4000 Black people, keeping many as long as eight days.  No whites were taken into custody.” The cause was a spurious claim that a Black man had threatened a white woman. Reflecting the fascist spirit of the Red Scare times, the Los Angeles Times actually reported that “Bolshevik propaganda was the principal cause of the riot.”  (pp. 355-56).

Personalities

Part of what makes Hochschild a popular author is his skill penchant for putting key individual faces on his narratives.  Accordingly, American Midnight is loaded with biographical sketches of numerous key personalities in wartime and Red Scare America: the quasi-messianic Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs, who campaigns while incarcerated for voicing antiwar in 1920; the brilliant anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman, deported by the fiercely anti-radical US Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer; the young J. Edgar Hoover, future longtime anti-radical head of the FBI, who earns his fascist chops as a workaholic anti-radical Justice Department official during and after the war; the reactionary Quaker Palmer, who turn his anti-radical and deportation campaign into the basis for a failed Democratic Party presidential candidacy; the great feminist socialist Kate Richard O’Hare, incarcerated alongside Goldman; the proto-fascist warmonger and US Army general Leonard Wood, a close friend of his fellow arch-militarist and racist authoritarian Theodore Roosevelt, and a former US commander in the Philippines, who brutally suppressed coal and steel strikes, runs an internment camp that tortures pacifists and other war opponents, and seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 1920; the masterful agent provocateur Leo Wendell, who infiltrated the IWW under the name “Louis Walsh;” US Army Major Ralph Van Deman, who uses his experience of systematically identifying and cataloguing Filippino “insurgents” to create US Military Intelligence, a high-powered surveillance agency that tracked down radicals and war opponents; the racist Postal Commissioner Sindey Burleson, who banned leftist, anti-war, and civil rights literature from the mails; Louis Post, the progressive Assistant Secretary of Labor, who Hochschild lauds for cleverly and effectively opposing the anti-red and anti-immigrant scare, helping bring it to an end in 1921.

Hochschild naturally spills a lot of ink on the wartime president Woodrow Wilson, who was elected with significant progressive support but turned a blind eye to the savage repression and racist bloodshed that took place in the US and after he brought the nation into the European war.  Wilson is depicted spending months in Europe soaking up British and French adoration while  obsessively trying to advance his League of Nations while his own country slipped into a proto-fascist “midnight.” Wilson endures his final two years in office crippled by a stroke, kept out of the public eye and bitterly disappointed as the US Senate refuses to ratify American enlistment in doomed scheme make World War I “the war to end all wars.”

One Century Hauntingly Apart

The margins of my copy of American Midnight are full of exclamation points and comments like “holy shit,” “JFC,” “wow,” “ugh,” and the like.  I thought I already knew most of what I needed to know about the proto-fascist madness let loose across the United States after Wilson brought the nation into the Great War,  but Hochschild’s book suggests had only scratched the surface of this horrific episode.

American Midnight’s epilogue rightly notes that the presidency and politics of the Ku Kux Klansman’s son Donald J. Trump mirrored and channeled “the forces that blighted the America of a previous century:….rage against immigrants and refugees, racism, Red-baiting, fear of subversive ideas in school, and much more,” all buttressed “by the appeal of simple solutions: deport aliens, forbid critical journalism, lock people up, blame everything on those of a different color or religion” (pp. 356-57). In an especially incisive reflection, he notes that violent and angry veterans of earlier US wars against North American Indigenous people and the people of the Philippines played key roles in right wing repression during and after WWI “just as …veterans of later Asian counterguerrilla wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have helped fill the ranks of new camouflage-clad armed militia groups” (p.357).

“Far From Perfect”

America at Midnight is a tour de force.  It’s an at once engaging, brilliant, and chilling book – essential reading for anyone who wants a truthful account of United States history in the last century. Still, the volume should not be exempted from criticism by those more radically inclined like the present writer. Hochschild should not have held back from describing the repression and violence he recounts as fascist, a term that applies with accuracy to the Trumpism that he rightly links to the “American midnight” of 1917-21. Given his penchant for biography and the importance he rightly gives to anti-Black racism in this volume, Hochschild should have noted that President Wilson was a white supremacist who deepened the racial oppression that has defined so much of American history by: failing to confront Jim Crow disenfranchisement and terror; screening the despicable anti-Black  movie  Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915;  dismissing Black activists; and actively segregating the federal government. He might also have noted how centrally Wilson’s postwar vision for inter-imperialist peace was framed as a response to the Russian Revolution’s call for international proletarian and peoples’ socialist revolution,

Hochschild fails to give US left radicals their due. Louis Post certainly deserves the high praise Hochschild gives him for fighting back against the nativist Red Scare from within the federal bureaucracy, but far more valiant and exemplary were the radicals who went to jail in opposition to a mass-murderous capitalist-imperialist war they knew to be rooted in the competition for world markets, raw materials, colonies, investment outlets, and power between the world’s leading capitalist states. Debs, Goldman, O’Hare, and others who defied the state by militantly opposing the capitalist-imperialist war deserve top heroic billing. They endured incarceration and, in Goldman’s case, exile, for their properly radical politics.

Finally, Hochschild’s following comment near the end of his book is far too mild: “America’s version of democracy is far from perfect…”  Far from perfect?  Seriously? Please: America’s version of democracy has always been fraudulent cover for a de facto capitalist class dictatorship. The famed American novelist Henry Miller said something much closer to the truth at the height of World War II: “Our democracy has been the worst democracy that has ever been tried out. It has never had anything to do with freedom, has never been anything more than a name…” (Henry Miller, “Murder the Murderer,” June 25, 1944.)

“Our [non-]democracy” needs to be radically replaced by something at least partly along the lines of what Debs and other early 20^th Century US radicals advocated – revolutionary socialism.  Capitalism and its evil twin imperialism have brought the world to the precipice of environmental and epidemiological extermination and terminal thermonuclear war while hatching new forms of fascism that now pose grave threats to humanity. Hochschild may be correct to note that “most Americans have seldom dreamed of a [socialist] revolution,” but he’s wrong not to add that this is a problem requiring rapid correction. Americans had better  start dreaming and organizing for such a revolution soon, for US-led capitalism-imperialism is bringing the human experiment to a conclusion at an ever-accelerating pace.

An earlier version of this review appeared on The Paul Street Report.

Endnotes

+1.  This soothing, “American exceptionalist” idea lay at the heart of the dramatic political advertisement in which the corporate Democrat and twice-failed presidential Joe Biden announced his bid to run against Trump in the spring of 2019:

‘Charlottesville, Va., is home to the author of one of the great documents in human history. We know it by heart: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” We’ve heard it so often, it’s almost a cliché. But it’s who we are.

Charlottesville is also home to a defining moment for this nation in the last few years. It was there on August of 2017 we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open, their crazed faces illuminated by torches, veins bulging, and bearing the fangs of racism. Chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ‘30s. And they were met by a courageous group of Americans, and a violent clash ensued, and a brave young woman lost her life.

And that’s when we heard the words from the president of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were “some very fine people on both sides.” Very fine people on both sides?

With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.

I wrote at the time that we’re in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that’s even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation — who we are…Folks, America’s an idea, an idea that’s stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth, it guarantees that everyone is treated with dignity and gives hate no safe harbor. It instills in every person in this country the belief that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve if you work at it.

That’s what we believe. And above all else, that’s what’s at stake in this election.

We can’t forget what happened in Charlottesville. Even more important, we have to remember who we are. This is America.’

+2. Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2016); Douglas Blackman, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II (New York: Anchor Books, 2008); Ward Churchill,  A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present (San Francisco: City Lights, 2001); Paul Street, Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007);  Paul Street, The Vicious Circle: Race, Prison, and Jobs (Chicago: Chicago Urban League, October 2002), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/theviciouscircle.pdf ; Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (New York: New Press, 2012); Martin J. Sklar, The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Alfred Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Wolin, Democracy Incorporated; Joel Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (New York: Free Press, 2005); Robert W. McChesney, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997); David Gordon, Richard Edwards, and Michael Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Paul Street, They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2014); Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated (Princeton University Press, 2008); Carol Boggs, Fascism Old and New: America at the Crossroads (New York: Routledge, 2018); Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (New York: Hill & Wang, 1991); Noam Chomsky, World Orders Old and New (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Paul Street. “The World Will Not Mourn the Decline of U.S. Hegemony,” Common Dreams, February 22, 2018, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/02/22/world-will-not-mourn-decline-us-hegemony;  Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Power (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017).  Adolph Hitler (who named his early WWII train “Amerika”) and his fellow top Nazis seemed to agree with H Rap Brown’s judgement. Their racist, eugenicist, and Social Darwinian project was inspired to no small degree by the history of American genocide, slavery, continental conquest, and Jim Crow segregation, whose grisly record of racist lynching was alive and well when Hitler seized power in Germany. The United States’ racial separatism and terror policies and practices provided role models for Hitler and other European fascists, who also admired American mass production methods and the potent means of thought- and feeling-control developed by American advertisers and Hollywood. European fascism was Americanism to no small degree. Hitler’s Nuremberg Race Laws were based on the Jim Crow model to no small extent. See James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017); Ira Katznelson, “What America Taught the Nazis,”  The Atlantic, November, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/; Becky Little, “How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow,” History, August 16, 2017, https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow.

+3. Toni Morrison, “Howard University’s 128^th Anniversary,” C-Span, March 3, 1995, https://www.c-span.org/video/?63683-1/howard-university-128th-anniversary

Paul Street’s latest book is This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America (London: Routledge, 2022).

US Supreme Court won’t block a ruling favoring a Native American man cited for speeding in Tulsa


The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on Thursday, July 13, 2023, in Washington. 

(AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

August 4, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a lower court ruling that invalidated a speeding ticket against a Native American man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because the city is located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.

The justices rejected an emergency appeal by Tulsa to block the ruling while the legal case continues. The order is the latest consequence of the high court’s landmark 2020 decision that found that much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains an Indian reservation.

Justin Hooper, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, was cited for speeding in 2018 by Tulsa police in a part of the city within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He paid a $150 fine for the ticket, but filed a lawsuit after the Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. He argued that the city did not have jurisdiction because his offense was committed by a Native American in Indian Country. A municipal court and a federal district court judge both sided with the city, but a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision.

There were no noted dissents among the justices Friday, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a short separate opinion, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, in which he said that Tulsa’s appeal raised an important question about whether the city can enforce municipal laws against Native Americans.

Kavanaugh wrote that nothing in the appeals court decision “prohibits the City from continuing to enforce its municipal laws against all persons, including Indians, as the litigation progresses.”

Federal Commission Concludes Nationwide Tour Gathering MMIP Testimony in Billings, MT

• Yahoo News

(photo: The Bureau of Indian Affairs)

BY ELYSE WILD 

 

JULY 27, 2023

On July 26th, the Not Invisible Act Commission (NIAC) wrapped up its final stop on a seven-city nationwide tour gathering testimony from Native Americans affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis. 

This week’s hearing took place in Billings, Montana, where Tribal officials, Native leaders, law enforcement and government officials convened for a panel discussion and to bear witness to testimony from MMIP survivors and family members. The hearing was also live streamed.

The hearing opened with a prayer and moment of silence, followed by an invitation for those in attendance to speak the name of a missing or murdered loved one. Names were spoken aloud for ten minutes.

Among those testifying was Carrisa Heavyrunner, whose 22-year-old daughter Mika Westwolf (Blackfeet) was killed in a hit-and-run on March 31 on Highway 93 near Arlee, Montana. Despite the Montana Highway Patrol identifying the driver as Sunny K. White, no arrests have been made in Westwolf’s death.

Heavyrunner told Billings news station NonStop Local that the lack of urgency from law enforcement is slowing healing for Native American communities affected by the MMIP crisis.

“You can’t heal if you’re not able to be seen and be heard,” Heavyrunner said. “That’s why I wanted to help these women share their stories about their loved ones that they lost… We gotta keep Mika’s name and other MMIP families and victims out there because everyone tends to forget things so easily nowadays. We’ve gotta keep the momentum going.”

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Native women living on reservations are murdered at a rate ten times higher than the national average. Lack of jurisdictional clarity, lack of collaboration between law enforcement bodies, and systemic apathy have led to thousands of unsolved cases in Indian Country. While there is no comprehensive data on MMIP, the Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates there are 4,200 unsolved MMIP cases have gone unsolved. The oldest MMIP case profile on the BIA’s public MMIP database dates back to 1969. 

Montana is home to twelve Tribal Nations and ranks among the states with the highest number of MMIPs in the nation, according to a report from the Urban Indian Health Institute. 

The 37-person Not Invisible Act Commission was launched in 2020 by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo). The commission is tasked with developing recommendations on improving intergovernmental collaboration on violent crimes in Indian Country and providing resources for survivors and victims’ families. Information and testimony gathered at the hearings will be part of the commission’s final report to Secretary Haaland, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Congress in October. 

The commission will hold a nationwide virtual hearing on Aug. 1 and 2. Registration for the hearing can be found here. 

Not Invisible Act Commission to Hear Testimony on MMIP in Montana

• Yahoo News

Interior Sec. Deb Haaland (Photo/File)

BY GRACE TERRY, CONTRIBUTING WRITER 

 

JULY 12, 2023

The Not Invisible Act Commission will hold its final in a series of public hearings on July 25-26, 2023, at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center, 1223 Mullowney Lane, Billings, MT, from 9:00 – 5:00 pm MT.

Native community members who are survivors of or have been impacted by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis are invited to attend to share their testimony. Those who wish to attend the hearing must register at here. 

Those unable to attend the hearing in person can submit written testimony, recommendations, or questions to the Not Invisible Act Commission at: NIAC@ios.doi.gov. Include the following in the subject line: “NIAC Testimony” or “NIAC Question.”

In October 2020, the Not Invisible Act of 2019 was signed into law as the first bill in history to be introduced and passed by four U.S. congressional members enrolled in their respective federally recognized tribes. The four were led by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) during her time in Congress.

The act was a response to the longstanding crises of MMIP and human trafficking (HT). The purpose of the act is to increase coordination in identifying and combating violent crime within Native lands and against Native Americans.

In accordance with the act, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary Haaland established the Not Invisible Act Commission. The Commission is a cross-jurisdictional advisory committee composed of both federal and non-federal members. These include law enforcement, Tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and survivors. 

Since April, the Commission has been holding field hearings in Tulsa, Anchorage, Flagstaff, Minneapolis, and Albuquerque, some of the communities most affected by the MMIP crisis. The Billings, MT, hearing later in July is the final hearing. Similar to earlier hearings, the Billings event will provide a forum for law enforcement, subject-matter experts, organizations, State/Tribal task forces, advocates, survivors/families, and others to offer testimony directly to the Commission. Trauma-informed mental health support will be available on-site with optional follow-up support as needed. 

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco emphasized, “The Justice Department is steadfast in our pledge to work with Tribal governments in preventing and responding to the violence that has disproportionately harmed Tribal communities. And we are committed to listening and being responsive to what our partners have to say.”

In a June 8, 2023, letter to Tribal leaders, Secretary Haaland said, “Only with the collective participation of all our communities will our missing, murdered, or trafficked relatives and friends no longer be invisible.” 

Carmen O’Leary (Cheyenne River Lakota) of Eagle Butte, SD, is the Executive Director of the Native Women’s Society of the Great Plains. According to O’Leary, “It is important to our community that the people have input, whether it is by contributing a personal story, offering a possible solution to address the problem, or helping to identify gaps in the (prevention/enforcement/service) system. The actions of the (Not Invisible Act) Commission will impact resources available to address MMIP issues for a long time.”

Findings from hearings and written testimony will shape the Commission’s final report to Secretary Haaland, Attorney General Garland, and Congress. This report is required by October 2023 and will include recommendations for how to improve intergovernmental coordination, bolster resources, and establish best practices for State/Tribal/Federal law enforcement to challenge the tragic epidemic of MMIP violence and human trafficking.

Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese is a member of Nambé Pueblo and senior policy advisor for Native American affairs at the White House. At the June 28 Not Invisible Commission hearing in Albuquerque, she acknowledged the victims and families present at the hearing and how critical their testimony is to create solutions to the crisis.

“These hearings are so important,” Hidalgo Reese said. “Neglect and invisibility are too often the cause or enable violence in our communities ... we need to understand this problem from every angle. We need to explore every possible solution, so we need to hear from all of you.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Native women living on reservations are murdered at a rate ten times higher than the national average. Layered jurisdiction, lack of collaboration between law enforcement bodies, and systemic apathy have led to thousands of unsolved cases in Indian Country. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates there are 4,200 unsolved MMIP cases.

Secretary Haaland made the following statement when the schedule of hearings was announced in February 2023, “This work requires each of us to face our own trauma, to relive unimaginable pain, and visualize a future in which our loved ones are safe, and our communities have closure. We’re here for our children, grandchildren, and relatives we have yet to meet. This work is urgently needed and requires all of us to work collaboratively. I am so grateful to the Commission for the work they are doing and the lasting impact they will have.”

The Commission will hold a national, virtual field hearing in August. 

This long-running lawsuit is the latest dispute over Oklahoma tribal relations

Molly Young, Oklahoman
Tue, July 18, 2023 

Oklahoma's tribal gaming industry paid the state $200 million in exclusivity fees over the last year ending in April. A central agreement between the state and tribes, known as the model gaming compact, spells out how much tribal gaming operations must pay in exchange for exclusive gaming rights in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond wants to take the lead in representing the state in a long-running tribal gaming lawsuit. But Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office says he has no plans to hand over the reins.

Drummond called defending the federal suit a “waste of state resources” and asked for approval to enter the ring and end the case in a June 16 letter to legislative leaders. Stitt’s general counsel told lawmakers in his own July 11 letter that Drummond has no standing.

The legal dispute is the latest clash among Oklahoma’s top elected officials over tribal relations.

Stitt has had rocky relationships with many tribal governments since 2019, when he challenged the central state-tribal gaming compact as unfair. Drummond took office in January and has often split from Stitt on key issues involving tribes, which he has described as economic engines for the state.

Both contend their approach to the federal lawsuit is what’s best for Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in June that he has spent many hours meeting with tribal leaders during the first months of his four-year term, which started in January.

More: Oklahoma tribes urge lawmakers to override governor's latest veto
What to know about the case, and the gaming compacts in Oklahoma

The case currently centers on the legal standing of standalone gaming compacts the governor negotiated with the Comanche and Otoe-Missouria nations. Four other tribes with sizable gaming arms — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Citizen Potawatomi nations — sued in 2020 to stop the agreements from taking effect outside the model gaming compact.

The model gaming compact sets the framework for Las Vegas-style gaming in Oklahoma and gives tribes exclusive rights to operate those facilities in exchange for paying the state a specific cut of revenues. Oklahoma collected $200 million through the agreement from May 2022 through April.

Oklahoma’s highest court ruled the outside compacts signed by Stitt were invalid. Federal gaming regulators did not directly reject the deals, though, which has prompted the legal fight over their future.

The governor clearly acted outside state law when he signed the deals on behalf of the state, Drummond said in his letter. “The Oklahoma Legislature did not approve of or authorize Governor Stitt to bind Oklahoma to these compacts,” Drummond wrote.

His letter to lawmakers was first reported by the online news outlet NonDoc and later provided to The Oklahoman by the attorney general’s office. It was addressed to House Speaker Charles McCall and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat. Drummond wrote that he believed legislative sign-off would give him the strongest argument to enter the case on Oklahoma’s behalf.

More: A law pressured tribes to give up land in 1898. It doesn't give Tulsa power today, court rules

McCall replied June 26, saying the attorney general already has the power needed to enter the case. “If you, as attorney general, deem it in the best interest of the state of Oklahoma for you to intercede in this litigation, then I and the citizens would expect you to do so,” McCall wrote. “The House will not interfere in that decision.”

A spokesperson for Treat said he is still reviewing the attorney general’s letter, as well as the July 11 response from Stitt’s attorney, Trevor Pemberton.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt sought to rework the model state-tribal gaming compact in 2019. Courts overruled his effort, but are still sorting out the future of separate deals he signed with some tribes.

Oklahoma’s attorney general cannot “unilaterally assume representation of the governor,” Pemberton wrote. He said professional conduct rules and legal precedence bar Drummond from doing so.

“The Oklahoma Supreme Court long ago made clear that, where the governor and the attorney general are at odds over a litigation objective, the governor’s decision prevails under the state’s constitutional framework,” Pemberton wrote in the letter, which the governor’s office provided to The Oklahoman. A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment further on the legal dispute.

More: McGirt v. Oklahoma, 3 years later: How police work on the Muscogee Nation reservation

In his letter, Pemberton pushed back against Drummond’s description of the lawsuit as protracted, noting that the tribal nations who sued could end the proceedings by dropping the case. He also contested Drummond’s assertion that the governor has hired “several Washington, D.C. and New York City law firms” to defend the case.

Pemberton said one such law firm is now leading the case with help from lawyers from a second law firm in Oklahoma City. Court records show the local firm is Ryan Whaley.

In response to Pemberton’s letter, Drummond said he is not trying to represent Stitt, but the state, to end a costly legal fight. “The Oklahoma Supreme Court has issued two opinions that make it clear the governor had no authority to enter into the compacts he is seeking to enforce,” the attorney general’s office said in a written statement.

Drummond has not said if he will move to enter the case without the formal legislative approval he requested. A spokesperson for McCall said his stance is unchanged after receiving Pemberton’s letter.

A different compact dispute is front and center for lawmakers. The Legislature passed a pair of bills in May to renew the state’s tobacco and car tag compacts with tribal nations through 2024. Stitt vetoed the measures in June. The Senate’s first veto override vote failed. Senators plan to vote again July 24.

More: What tribal leaders in Oklahoma are saying about a key Supreme Court decision

Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Gaming lawsuit ignites disagreement over tribal relations in Oklahoma

Trans Mountain pipeline expansion likely to send more Canadian oil to US, not Asia

Story by By Nia Williams •

A pipe yard servicing government-owned oil pipeline operator Trans Mountain is seen in Kamloops© Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) -The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) was meant to unlock Asian markets for Canadian oil, but analysts and traders said those barrels now will probably land on the U.S. West Coast as Asia gobbles up Russian oil that is cheaper due to sanctions from Western countries after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.


An Indigenous-led rally against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in Vancouver© Thomson Reuters

Asia's heavy crude refining market is roughly nine times the size of California's, but the geopolitical upheaval means Canada will struggle to reduce its reliance on its No. 1 oil customer, the United States.

The troubled C$30.9 billion ($23.5 billion) TMX project, bought by the Canadian government in 2018 to ensure it got built, is finally nearing completion more than a decade after it was first proposed as an expanded gateway to Asia.

Western sanctions on Russian crude following its invasion of Ukraine have upended those plans. Russia has been flooding Asian markets with cheap Urals and ESPO crudes. Canadian barrels will struggle to compete, analysts and traders said.

TMX next year is due to start shipping an extra 590,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude early from Alberta to British Columbia's Pacific Coast, where it will be loaded onto tankers for export.

"We think a disproportionate amount of those volumes are going actually to PADD 5 (the U.S. West Coast), staying within North America instead of Asia," said John Coleman, principal analyst of North American crude markets at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

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Chinese oil refiners PetroChina and Sinopec have bought and processed Canadian heavy crude in the past.

Their purchases are based on relative affordability, trade sources said. Russia's Urals crude produces higher volumes of fuel and is significantly cheaper than heavy Canadian barrels, said one Calgary-based crude trader.

Another Canadian trader said regulatory delays and environmental opposition have also made TMX less lucrative for producers than it could have been a few years ago.

"A lot of our lunch has been eaten by the Russians and Middle Eastern countries like Iraq," he said.

HEAVY CRUDE DEMAND

Trans Mountain's original pipeline currently ships around 300,000 bpd of mainly light crude to the U.S. West Coast, with BP's Cherry Point refinery and HF Sinclair Corp's Puget Sound refinery among the main customers for Canadian imports, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

The expanded pipeline will transport mostly heavy oil, said Skip York, chief energy strategist at Turner, Mason & Company, and the strongest demand will likely come from refineries in southern California that are set up to process heavy sour crude.

The deep discounts on Russian crude are temporary, said York, and more TMX barrels may head to Asia and displace some Middle Eastern barrels once Western sanctions against Moscow eventually lift.

"Today every crude in Asia is having a hard time competing with Russian crude," York said. "But diluted bitumen ought to compete fairly well against Arab heavy, and will compete against Basra heavy."

($1 = 1.3146 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia, additional reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio)

With UPS Teamsters strike looming, union workers to hold 'practice picket' at Worldport

Olivia Evans, Louisville Courier Journal
Tue, June 27, 2023 

With a month left before their contract expires, the union representing more than 340,000 UPS workers is calling for "practice pickets" nationwide.

In Louisville, that means thousands of Teamsters Local 89 members will begin practicing a picket line Wednesday morning at Worldport, the largest sorting and logistics facility in America.

The Louisville action comes days after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien called for practice pickets nationwide after claiming UPS presented an "appalling economic counterproposal" to the Teamsters during national negotiations for a new labor contract.

More on the UPS negotiations: UPS Teamsters union employees pass strike action vote. What that means for you.

"These are being coordinated across the country; we wanted to do it as soon as we could," said Stephen Piercey, the communications director for Teamsters Local 89, which represents roughly 10,000 UPS employees in Louisville.

Despite the nationwide practice pickets, UPS says it remains confident that a new contract will be reached.

"We are making steady progress in our negotiations with the Teamsters on a wide array of issues," said Laura Holmberg, a spokesperson for UPS. "Even so, we are not surprised to see some union members making their voices heard."
Is a 'practice picket' a strike?

It is not a strike.

"It's kind of a mock picket line," Piercey said. It serves as a training exercise and prepares members, many of whom have never been on a picket line. "It also kind of serves as a little bit of a rally," he said.

Union members also hope the practice picket moves UPS to meet some of their negotiating demands.

"A practice picket is one of the most powerful or aggressive job actions you can take, and it is typically ... the last thing you do prior to a potential legal strike," Piercey said. "It's meant to serve many functions, but one of the biggest is it's kind of meant to be a shot across the bow at the company saying, 'This is what's coming if you guys don't get serious and give our members what they want.'"

A strike, unlike a practice picket, is a legal action the union can choose to take only after the contract is expired.

Will the practice picket impact me as a consumer?

No.

Employees who are on the clock during the practice picket are expected to go to work and not participate. Piercey said one of the first things union members are told ahead of the practice picket is, "Do not be late to your shift ... this is a training exercise it's not an actual picket."

Teamsters are explicitly instructed to not interfere with or disturb working operations for employees on the clock, to not disparage the employer, to not tell the public to boycott the company, along with other items. The union members are expected to remain peaceful for the duration of the practice picket.

Teamsters Local 89 anticipates the practice picket, which will start at 10 a.m., to last roughly 45 minutes.
Why are local UPS workers practice picketing?

At midnight on July 31, the contract between UPS and the Teamsters will expire if an agreement is not reached between the two sides.

The two entities have been negotiating for a few months and have reached some tentative agreements on items such as air conditioning measures and heat safety.

After negotiating non-economic components of the contract, Teamsters and UPS have recently shifted to focus on negotiating pay, benefits and other financial elements. On June 22, the Teamsters tweeted their disappointment in UPS' counterproposal to economic negotiations.

On June 27, the Teamsters Twitter indicated that UPS did not return with a revised economic proposal.

Piercey said he hopes the nationwide practice pickets, including the one in Louisville, will encourage "the company to action, to get them to get serious at the table and not play games anymore." The last time the Teamsters held a strike was in 1997.

In a statement to the Courier Journal, Holmberg at UPS said, "We plan and expect to reach agreement on a new contract before the end of July that is a win for our employees, our company and customers and the union."

For you: UPS to change Friday operations in response to reduction in package volume

Union members also say they look forward to reaching a contract agreement.

"Really, all we're trying to accomplish is to activate our members, make sure they're engaged and make sure they know and to send a signal to UPS that if they don't get serious that we are prepared to do whatever it takes for us to win the contract our members deserve," Piercey said. "None of us want to see a strike at UPS."

This story will be updated.

Contact reporter Olivia Evans at oevans@courier-journal.com or on Twitter at @oliviamevans_

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: UPS Teamsters hold 'practice picket' in KY as potential strike looms

Teamsters Slam ‘Appalling’ UPS Contract Proposal


Glenn Taylor
Updated Tue, June 27, 2023 


A potential Aug. 1 strike is still on the table for more than 330,000 UPS workers, with the union behind them stepping up labor contract negotiations with an unwavering message: pay up.

After a Thursday meeting where the International Brotherhood of Teamsters shared their full economic proposal with UPS for a new five-year contract, the union voiced its displeasure with the shipping company’s “appalling” counterproposal, declaring “no more meetings until money gets real.”

“The Teamsters will not bargain or accept any contract that’s cost-neutral,” said Sean M. O’Brien, general president of the Teamsters, during the meeting. “We are not going to sell ourselves short in these negotiations, and we will not buy back terms and conditions to protect our members. We have 39 days to go. This company is wasting time putting forth offensive proposals. If UPS wants to negotiate a contract for 1997 working conditions, they’re going to get 1997 consequences.”

O’Brien didn’t share the full financial details of the Teamsters proposal, but said it was “the biggest economic proposal in labor history.”

The proposal’s priorities included wage increases each year of the contract, “catch-up raises” for part-time employees, additional holidays and more paid time off, pension increases, as well as protection and enhancement of existing health and welfare benefits.

The union also wants to eliminate the two-tier 22.4 job classification, which the Teamsters say penalizes junior workers who perform the same functions as senior workers, and create more full-time jobs created over the next five years.

On Thursday, UPS described the talks’ progress toward a new national master agreement as “strong,” with both parties agreeing on all non-economic issues.

According to O’Brien, the delivery company and the union members have reached 55 tentative agreements addressing a variety of topics within the contract, such as the installation of air conditioners within all vehicles purchased after Jan. 1, 2024.

The parcel giant said the economic proposal will require “serious and detailed discussion” over the next few weeks.

“UPS is prepared to be at the table every day until we reach an agreement that allows us to continue rewarding our people with the best pay and benefits package in the industry while providing the flexibility our business needs to deliver for our customers and consumers,” said UPS in a statement.

The parties have taken different public approaches to the labor negotiations, with UPS and CEO Carol Tomé continually pointing to the progress being made. On the other hand, the Teamsters have been more critical of the opposition, whether it be via social media posts on Twitter or Facebook or commentary from O’Brien himself. On Friday, the union’s Twitter account detailed recent demonstrations outside UPS facilities.

N.Y. Warehouse Worker Protection Act goes into effect

Elsewhere on the logistics labor front, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Monday that legislation protecting warehouse workers from unreasonably demanding work quotas is now in effect.

The Warehouse Worker Protection Act, signed in December, includes new requirements for distribution centers to disclose work speed data to current and former employees to inform them about their job performance and rights in the workplace.

The legislation also protects workers from disciplinary action or firing exclusively because of a failure to meet undisclosed quotas or performance standards, including those that do not allow for proper breaks.

With the Warehouse Worker Protection Act now in effect, employees can request quota information at any time, and are protected from having to work through meals or being limited from using the bathroom to make quota. These workers also can report violations related to quotas, and are immune from employer retaliation.

This law applies to employers and employees at warehouse distribution centers.

Within 30 days of an employee’s start date, employers must share quotas with them through a written description (in their preferred language) of each quota they are expected to meet.

“Warehouse workers suffer serious work-related injuries at a rate more than twice the average for all private industries. These workers routinely spend entire shifts speeding through tasks in an attempt to meet quotas mandated by their employers, all too often suffering musculoskeletal and repetitive stress injuries as a result,” said Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, saying the act “provides long overdue limits to protect warehouse workers from inhumane quotas, and to protect them from retaliation for asserting their rights under this law.”

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), also threw his support behind the legislation, calling it “an important step in ensuring that workers are not forced to choose between their job and their safety.”

The RWDSU has represented employees at REI stores in Manhattan and Cleveland, as well as those seeking unionization at Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala. distribution center, where a terminated union leader was recently reinstated.

Teamsters president tells UPS union wants tentative agreement in 1 week

Mark Solomon
Tue, June 27, 2023 

Tentative contract in 1 week, Teamster boss demands. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Teamsters union General President Sean M. O’ Brien told UPS that the union wants a tentative contract agreement within the next week that its leadership can support or that it will demand that the company present its last, best and final contract offer.

The escalating rhetoric, included in a Tuesday statement, comes as UPS (NYSE: UPS) purportedly returned to the bargaining table Tuesday morning in Washington without an updated counteroffer to present to the union. According to union sources, O’Brien harshly reiterated that the Teamsters will not work beyond July 31 without a new contract.

“When we say the current contract expires July 31, that means we want a new contract in place starting August 1. Not in six months. Not next spring. We demand a historic new contract August 1, with more money in our members’ pockets immediately,” O’Brien said in the statement. “UPS has wasted enough time and hoarded these record profits. Our members want what they have earned.”

Any tentative agreement would need to be endorsed by the Teamsters’ national committee before being properly disseminated and voted on by the membership by the end of the current agreement.

UPS was not immediately available to comment.

Before caucusing to review economic proposals, the Teamsters told UPS the union committed to working seven days a week and through the upcoming holiday weekend to get a deal done.

“This is why there’s new leadership at the Teamsters. UPS isn’t working with the union’s prior administration, dragging out the bargaining process and submitting to extensions until finally agreeing to a watered-down deal months after the expiration of the contract,” said General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman. “This is what hard bargaining looks like. This is labor’s leverage, and the Teamsters are not afraid to use it.”

Both sides have already concluded talks on noneconomic issues, tentatively agreeing to language covering 55 agreements. The union presented its initial offer to UPS last Wednesday to cover economic issues such as wages, benefits and changes in worker classifications. The union subsequently rejected UPS’ counteroffer as appalling, saying it calls for meager wage increases and takes workers backward on cost-of-living adjustments.

The post Teamsters president tells UPS union wants tentative agreement in 1 week appeared first on FreightWaves.

Teamsters Union Allocates $2M to Aid Members During Writers Strike

Katie Kilkenny
Mon, June 26, 2023 


The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union is allocating $2 million to aid members that are in financial straits amid the ongoing writers’ strike.

The labor organization, which represents drivers, location managers and casting directors, among others in entertainment, will be creating a fund to assist members in need after its general executive board unanimously approved the action. Particular eligibility criteria have yet to be announced, but the fund will be dedicated to all Teamsters that work in the entertainment industry, the union announced on Monday.

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“We can’t rely on employers to protect and support our members,” the union’s general president Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “Teamsters protect Teamsters. This money will go to support hardworking families.”

Fellow entertainment crew union IATSE announced that it was directing the same amount to a series of established industry charities earlier this month in order to help its members facing tough times. The Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actors Fund), the Motion Picture & Television Fund, the Inevitable Foundation and Humanitas are just some of the institutions that are likewise offering support to striking writers and/or to other workers in the entertainment industry whose livelihoods have been adversely affected by the work stoppage.

Many members of the Teamsters have been visibly supportive of the writers’ strike since it began on May 2. Empowered by a clause in their contract that shields members from discipline if they respect a picket line, various Teamster-driven trucks have turned around when faced with striking writers at production locations, helping the writers expediently shut down ongoing productions and disrupt day-to-day activities at studios.

Lindsay Dougherty, the director of the union’s motion picture and theatrical trade division and western region vice president said in a statement that studios and tech companies “should be ashamed of themselves for playing games with people’s livelihoods.” She added, “We are committed to making sure our members are protected and getting this money into their hands as soon as possible.”

Yellow running out of options, sues union for $137M

Todd Maiden

FreightWaves
Tue, June 27, 2023 

. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Less-than-truckload carrier Yellow Corp. announced Tuesday that it has filed a $137 million breach of contract lawsuit against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for blocking proposed changes to modernize how the carrier operates.

Yellow (NASDAQ: YELL) said the union doesn’t have the authority to stop a proposed change of operations, which the company views as the linchpin to its survival. Yellow alleges that union interference has harmed the company to the tune of $137.3 million (“and counting”) in lost adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as well as at least $1.5 billion for a loss in enterprise value that the company “is sustaining and will sustain.”

Yellow’s enterprise value — market capitalization plus net debt — consists mostly of its debt. Yellow’s market cap has plummeted since the end of 2021 as its share price has fallen from more than $14 to roughly $1.

“We do not take this action lightly, but the Union’s leadership has left us with no choice,” Yellow’s management stated in a news release. “For many months, we have made good faith efforts to meet with the IBT to propose a path forward that works for all parties, but they refuse even to meet, let alone engage in honest talks.”

The carrier is seeking to push through a second phase of operational changes as part of a companywide overhaul called “One Yellow.”

The plan includes the consolidation of its four LTL operating companies, closing excess terminals and redefining work rules for some drivers, among other items. The union has rejected the latest proposal after acquiescing to a similar change last year in the western part of Yellow’s network.

The union has been adamant that the latest proposal would require too many utility positions, which require drivers to work freight on the docks at various locations. It says its member employees at Yellow have given billions in the form of wage, benefits and pension concessions in the past and that it will not bail out the company again. It plans to honor the current contract in place, which expires next year.

“The company is misleading our members and the public,” said Fred Zuckerman, Teamsters general secretary-treasurer, in a news release. “We have a contract with Yellow that expires March 31, 2024, and Teamsters are living up to it. … This lawsuit is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save face.”

But Yellow says the Teamsters have no right to interfere with the changes it seeks.

“Under the NMFA [National Master Freight Agreement], Yellow has the exclusive right to run its business, effect mergers, consolidate operations, open and close terminals, and the Union cannot interfere with those entrepreneurial decisions — its involvement is limited to determining and resolving the seniority of those Union employees affected by the change,” the lawsuit read.

Yellow contends the changes are required to lower its cost structure and allow it to compete with nonunion carriers, which have less cumbersome rules and often combine the roles of driving and freight handling. The lawsuit said recent market share losses — roughly a 33% decline in tonnage over the last two years — are directly associated with the way it is required to operate.

The company asserts that 1,000 road drivers in total would be required to work the docks. Roughly 400 are already performing the dual functions and the remaining 600 utility positions would be filled by employees with the least seniority.

The complaint alleges Sean O’Brien, Teamsters general president, “has prevented Yellow from meeting with IBT leadership.” Yellow contends that the union has been onboard with Yellow’s restructuring plan but it’s O’Brien’s “militant approach” that has stalled the implementation.

“Now, however, the Union has reversed course and without any justification refuses to comply with its contractual obligations to cooperate with and not impede the implementation of the remaining phases of One Yellow,” the lawsuit said.

Yellow accuses O’Brien of assuming “the role of public agitator for the company’s demise,” referring to some of his social media posts, which it describes as “false, unconstructive and irresponsible.”

“Notwithstanding Yellow’s repeated approaches to the Union and Mr. O’Brien to meet and negotiate, and its repeated offers to accommodate the Union’s purported demands, Mr. O’Brien has refused to permit any cooperation or negotiations, choosing instead to direct profanities at Yellow and its executives and even to gloat at Yellow’s impending demise.”

Yellow alleges the union has breached the collective-bargaining agreement by rejecting the proposed changes and not agreeing to schedule a required hearing on the matter. It says union leadership is blocking the request as a means to “extract wage increases” and that it “had no right to require wage increases from Yellow as a condition of approving CHOPS [a change of operations proposal].”

Yellow said it agreed to “serial extra-contractual demands” throughout the negotiating process, including the union’s demand for a vote by membership, which Yellow said was later refused by union leadership. Instead, Yellow claims union officials insisted the NMFA would have to be reopened to proceed with any changes and that Yellow would have to “come up with sufficient financial improvements” in those negotiations.

“Yellow Corp.’s claims of breach of contract by the Teamsters are unfounded and without merit,” O’Brien said in a news release. “For a company that loves to cry poor, Yellow’s executives seem to have no problem paying a team of high-priced lawyers to wage a public relations battle — all in a failed attempt to mask their incompetence.”
Yellow just weeks away from running out of cash

The lawsuit said Yellow could run out of cash as soon as mid-July, at which time its creditors “will likely force the Company into liquidation.”

The company reported total liquidity of $168 million at the end of the first quarter, which was down $109 million from the year-ago period. However, that change included a $98 million reduction in debt. Cash flow from operations was $13 million in the period.

GOP senator challenges Teamsters boss to MMA fight for charity

Sarah Fortinsky

THE HILL
Mon, June 26, 2023 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) challenged the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Monday to an MMA fight for charity, reigniting the animosity between them that was on full display during a viral moment at a Senate hearing in March.

“An attention-seeking union Teamster boss is trying to be punchy after our Senate hearing. Okay, I accept your challenge. MMA fight for charity of our choice. Sept 30th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ll give you 3 days to accept,” Mullin wrote in a tweet Monday.

Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, responded to a tweet from union president Sean O’Brien, who called Mullin a “clown” and a “fraud” and challenged him to “quit the tough guy act” and find him “any place, anytime.”

“Greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self made. In reality, just a clown & fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy,” O’Brien tweeted several days ago.

In O’Brien’s tweet, he appeared to be mocking Mullin for his height, attaching a photo of Mullin using a step behind a podium and circling the step beneath Mullin’s feet in the photo.

At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in March, O’Brien told Mullin — who owned nonunion plumbing companies before selling his majority shares in 2021 — that Mullin was “out of line” for accusing him and other union leaders of “sucking the paycheck” out of union workers to pay for what Mullin described as the union leaders’ “exorbitant” salaries.

Mullin pushed back saying, “Don’t tell me I’m out of line,” and, “You need to shut your mouth.”

The Hill reported O’Brien’s salary was roughly $193,000 in 2019; Mullin, meanwhile had a net worth $31.6 million and $75.6 million in 2020, according to the newspaper Tulsa World.

The latest development, however, seems to come from a moment in a more recent hearing, when Mullin was making a similar argument about union bosses taking money from workers. He mentioned O’Brien as an example, though Mullin appeared to forget O’Brien’s name, calling him O’Malley instead.

“Hey, JohnWayne Mullin..First off, my name’s O’Brien not O’Malley. Secondly, you should get your facts straight because every time you speak in these hearings you’re full of sh*t. The more you run your mouth, the more you show the American public what a moron you are,” O’Brien responded in a tweet with a clip of the hearing.

He followed up with two more tweets directed at Mullin: one to which Mullin responded by challenging O’Brien to a fight and another tweet that said, “What have you done for working people in OK @SenMullin? Last time I checked, your state ranks near the bottom in median wages. Sounds like you need to shut your mouth & get to work for the people of your state. They deserve action, not your phony “man of the people” spiel.”

Yellow continues to record net losses and booked a 100.8% operating ratio (operating expenses expressed as a percentage of revenue) in the first quarter.

It has $1.3 billion in debt that comes due in 2024, with total obligations of $1.5 billion outstanding when including lease financing obligations.

The lawsuit showed Yellow also reached out to the White House and Sen. Bernie Sanders “to no avail” in efforts to broker a deal.

The U.S. Treasury made a $700 million COVID-relief loan to the company in July 2020. That made the U.S. government the largest shareholder in Yellow as it now holds 30.1% of its outstanding stock. That loan matures Sept. 30, 2024.

The company recently asked to defer health and welfare and pension contribution payments for the months of July and August to preserve cash. However, there has been no update on that request.

“By stonewalling Yellow’s implementation of Phase 2, the Union has knowingly and intentionally triggered a death spiral for Yellow,” the lawsuit said. “The harm it has caused and continues to cause Yellow was foreseeable and serious, and the Union has failed and continues to fail to take any reasonable precautions to protect Yellow’s economic interests.”

“The lawsuit by Yellow Corp. is a blatant attempt to undermine the rights of workers and discredit the Teamsters. The Teamsters are fully prepared to defend the union’s position vigorously and utilize all available legal resources to challenge the meritless accusations put forth by Yellow Corp.,” the Teamsters notice said.

Shares of YELL were down 28% at 11:13 a.m. on Tuesday compared to the S&P 500, which was up 0.3%. Shares of other LTL carriers were up between 3% and 7% at the time as investors contemplated Yellow’s potential demise.