‘I’m a Teamster. Here’s why I’m voting against Trump’

(The writer is a UPS pre-loader at the warehouse in Lansing and a lifelong area resident.)

Michigan workers are on the move. Last year, UAW members won a game-changing strike against the Big 3 automakers, and UPS workers won a historic contract by mobilizing for a nationwide strike.

These victories happened because union members elected the right leadership to lead the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters. Now we need to elect the right president for our country. 

Donald Trump has spent a lifetime busting unions. He even crossed a union picket line during “The Apprentice.” Kamala Harris has walked picket lines to support striking workers. The contrast doesn’t get any clearer than that. 

This November, I’ll proudly vote against Trump — and I urge my fellow Teamsters to do the same. 

I started working at the UPS warehouse in Lansing when I was 20. From the start, it was clear UPS cared little for its workers. We were cogs on a conveyor belt, one that moved too fast and left us with sore backs and limbs. 

But I was lucky: I found a group of guys who actually wanted to make our lives better. I became a union steward, and we got speed-up under control. It wasn’t easy. It took us a year just to get a safety meeting — but it taught me an important lesson. As a union, we could achieve much more than any individual.

Last year, I saw just how much we could win after we organized for a nationwide strike and won a new contract that secured record wage increases, eliminated two-tier wages for drivers, and kept our pensions and healthcare secure.

But I’ve also learned our rights as workers aren’t guaranteed. In 2013, under a Republican trifecta, Michigan passed a so-called Right to Work law. It became significantly harder to unite my co-workers in our union, even if they hated their working conditions. When we elected a Democratic trifecta in Michigan last year, one of their first acts was to wipe Right to Work off the books. That helped set the stage for our big win at UPS.

Now Donald Trump wants to make Right to Work a national law. It’s just one of the many anti-union maneuvers he supports and backed in office. Trump stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union-busting lawyers, who gutted our ability to fight for ourselves in the workplace. 

He tried to bankrupt our pensions by stonewalling the Butch-Lewis Act. Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote as vice president, saving the pensions of over 400,000 Teamsters and a million union workers and their families.  

If Trump is elected, his second term will be even worse. The Project 2025 agenda his allies cooked up would deliver an unprecedented assault on labor rights. It’ll hurt our ability to save the jobs of w orkers when they’re unfairly fired. It’ll silence workers from speaking up about safety hazards. It’ll make bosses richer and workers less well off.

I’m proud of the work I do. I get up at 3 in the morning five days a week and work hard at my job because I want to deliver for my co-workers and our customers. But the work isn’t easy.

As a UPS worker, I delivered for our country during the pandemic. I need political leaders to deliver more than empty words. I need policies that keep me safe on the job and make sure I have the pay and benefits I need to get by. 

Trump opposes all that and no amount of smoke and mirrors can hide it. He may say he’s a champion for workers — but he just plays one on TV.