O’Brien Takes to Facebook to Attack Unions, USPS

Frustrated by what he sees as unionized employees attempting to hijack his re-election campaign, House Speaker took to Facebook on Aug. 13, and posted a long diatribe against “union-controlled government.”

In the post, O’Brien claimed that his yard signs are being pulled from public areas and that the owner of a store in Mount Vernon was targeted by "union thugs" with a potential boycott if she didn’t take down a sign supporting the speaker. He also claimed that mailers he was sending to the district were taking a longer time than usual to reach voters, speculating that union employees in the postal service were to blame. 

“Red-tagged political mail that is delivered to the Manchester distribution center is supposed to get into mailboxes in my district the next day, two at the most,” O’Brien wrote in the post. “The first mailer I sent out two weeks ago took three days to be delivered. The second, which, similar to the first, was hand-delivered to the Manchester (Goffs Falls Road) postal distribution center, was posted last Wednesday. It was not delivered, however, in one of my two towns – New Boston – until Saturday, again three days later. The same mailer has yet to be delivered to the other town in district - Mont Vernon, even though it is five days later.”

A union representative spoke with WMUR-TV and called the speaker “paranoid” but a former district manager for the postal service said there had been political problems in the past, including in 2004, when an NRA mailer supporting then-President George W. Bush was sent a month before the election but arrived six days after the election.

O’Brien also cited the NRA mailer in his post. He said with state unions threatening to dump $50,000 into his district to have him beaten, it wouldn’t surprise him if postal employees “just stop delivering my mail entirely,” keeping him from reaching out to voters.

“This is the way the union bosses and their political wing, the Democrat party, think representative government should work in New Hampshire,” he wrote. “For them, democracy is agreeing with them or being silent. Their message and their agenda is so obviously wrong for New Hampshire, that neither cannot stand the light of reasoned debate. So, union thugs will cut off debate.”

In the 24-hours after the critical piece was posted, 15 friends had liked it, 14 had shared it, creating conversations about the post on their pages, and 25 people left mostly positive comments. The comments ranged from supportive – “You do an incredible job” – to critical – “well, stop screwing with union workers’ rights!”

The speaker didn’t respond to any of the comments on the post.