IAFF’s Kelly Endorses Biden
after he leaves the race.
If you were confused last week when Teamster’s prez Sean O’Brien entered “enemy territory” to speak at the Republican convention, another shock awaits.
Ever since Theodore Roosevelt met with United Mine Workers president John Mitchell during the coal strike of 1912, union members have implicitly known that U.S. presidential politics matter. Roosevelt waded in to personally settle the crippling strike, recognizing the role of labor in American society.
But that truism is entirely lost at the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) which is proving (again) that things can never be too bizarre.
Under the direction of Ed Kelly and the executive board, the IAFF is sitting on their hands in the 2024 presidential election, surely one of the most consequential races in our history where union members are concerned.
In firefighting terms it’s like ever-proud Boston firefighter Ed Kelly pulling up to a working fire with toddlers trapped and saying, “I’ll sit this one out.”
Having failed to endorse Biden when it mattered, Kelly issued a statement this week:
“He is undoubtedly the greatest president firefighters and emergency medical workers have ever had,” Kelly stated, adding that the union membership will forever be in his debt.” (FR1)
You might say WTF but I say it’s LA-LA land where the grownups have left the building and you can say and do anything you want.
So much for Kelly’s IAFF as “tip of the spear.”
In which world do you get to abandon your leader on the battlefield and then sing his praises when he falls?
Today’s IAFF, that’s where.
Kelly knocked Harold Schaitberger out of the IAFF but he’s running it just the way Harold would: all decisions are based on his ego and personal political survival.
This despite the fact that the Right’s agenda, Project 2025, calls for “Congress to consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.”
They want to destroy our union and we’ll watch from the sidelines.
Pathetic.
