President Barack Obama is temporarily in jeopardy of losing the support of his most trusted friends: the unions. James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters Union, joined with Joseph Hansen, the International President of the UFCW, and D. Taylor, the President of UNITE-HERE, to write a scathing letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi denouncing Obama’s Affordable Care Act because it will “destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
The letter includes these passages:
Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. This is especially stinging because other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last week’s huge accommodation for the employer community–extending the statutorily mandated “December 31, 2013” deadline for the employer mandate and penalties.
Then comes the threat:
Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it.
No one likes hearing such things from the Teamsters.