A Northeast Philadelphia American Legion bore witness to a tense union membership meeting on a Sunday morning, convened by Bill Hamilton. The main agenda was an unavoidable reality – Donald Trump, now President-elect, had claimed victory since their previous rendezvous. Customs were followed, an oath to allegiance pledged, and a minute’s silence for the bereaved, the fallen, and soldiers miles away. In the aftermath of these ritualistic formalities, Hamilton shed light on the new political chapter.
Hamilton, Teamsters Eastern Region’s vice president and Teamsters Local 107’s business agent, had first-hand experience of the social divisions and malignant discourse disrupting his usually unified local. With determination, he set out to raise awareness among his members about the challenges that Trump’s presidency posed to similar unions. The Democrat was distinctly unimpressed, but far from shocked, when his organization’s informal online survey presented a figure – 66% of Local 107 members appeared to prefer Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hamilton’s subsequent address contained an acknowledgment of the implicit friction in the room. He expressed how their union, their very community, was fractured over such dynamics. Bonds of fraternity and kinship were being strained, with some members choosing silence over discord, all because of the recent elections.
Interestingly, ‘social issues’ formed the backdrop for some of the members tilting towards Trump. Take the case of Edmund Farley, a member of Local 107, who cast his vote for the very first time this year, and he pitched it for Trump. Farley, in his fifties, confessed his desire for a change from the status quo and credited social issues as the decisive factor.
In a turn of events, Michael Sviben, a stalwart union truck driver now living a quiet life in retirement, deviated considerably from his 2012 voting pattern when he placed his trust in Barack Obama, the then president-candidate. Fast forward a few years, and Sviben found himself ticking the box for Trump instead, manifesting an implicit mistrust for President Joe Biden.
The septuagenarian Sviben didn’t name a specific agenda that guided his decision. Rather, his stirring message resonated with the aspiration of millions – to see a united, vibrant America once more, contradicting the undermining narrative often associated with Trump supporters.
Trump’s history on labor issues was nowhere near exemplifying a supporter of the working class. Ignoring pleas to increase the federal minimum wage, he diluted an imminent Obama-era overtime rule, simultaneously reducing the income threshold for overtime workers. This move, eschewing progress, effectively stripped an estimated 3 million workers of their eligibility for overtime pay.
Trump’s policies, with their broad-brush approach to tariffs, left economists predicting an increase in the cost of goods imported from outside the U.S. His stance, far from championing labor rights and welfare, seemed more inclined towards creating economic turmoil, masked by a veneer of so-called economic protectionism. Yet, despite the clear contradictions, several members of the local 107 union sided with him.
Before the turbulence of the election process, Hamilton, armed with curiosity and a sense of duty, quizzed his colleagues about their leaning towards Trump. Their collective responses, often reflective of wider societal divides, brought the stark reality into sharp focus, the ideological divisions within the workforce were palpable.
In the aftermath of the election, those among the Teamsters who backed Harris found themselves in a challenging predicament, attempting to reconcile with peers who had diverging political views. The fissures exposed by the election resounded in their workplaces, the union halls, and the community at large – a rich, textured testimony to the sociopolitical dynamism.