Senator Markwayne Mullin got into a heated argument with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien on Wednesday, during a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on union-busting tactics.

Markwayne accused the union leader of stealing from his workers’ salaries to earn his own. He attacked O’Brien and his salary during the argument. In response, O’Brien called him a greedy CEO and said that the union held greedy people like Markwayne accountable.

One user, @NerdPyle, shared the drastic change to Markwayne’s net worth at the end of 2020.

Markwayne previously owned five non-union plumbing companies, but he sold the majority of his stakes in 2021. He accused union leaders of their engagement in intimidation tactics to unionize his company so that they could draw exorbitant salaries.

Sean O’Brien accused Markwayne Mullin of hiding money from workers

Markwayne Mullin mentioned O’Brien’s salary, which was around $193,000 in 2019. He further questioned the union leader about how many jobs he had created, and then accused him of “sucking the paycheck” out of employees to earn his own salary.

O’Brien warned Markwayne that he was speaking out of line, to which the GOP senator replied:

Sean O’Brien then counter-attacked Markwayne Mullin about his salary when he used to be a CEO. O’Brien added:

Markwayne Mullin’s net worth ranged between $31.6 million to $75.6 million in 2020. He replied to O’Brien’s question and said he kept his earnings around $50,000 so that he could invest more into his company.

However, O’Brien accused the Oklahoma Representative of hiding money from his employees. Markwayne finished his remarks by saying that he was not against the union, but he believed that employees should not have to pay dues to the union if they did not want to.

Wednesday’s Committee hearing was hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders and was centered around anti-union tactics by bigger companies such as Starbucks. Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, recently agreed to testify later in March before the committee after receiving a subpoena threat from Senator Sanders.

The hearing was titled:

In 2013, it was alleged by the Office of Congressional Ethics that the then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin received over $600,000 as extra income from his companies, which surpassed the congressional limit.

The House Ethics Committee ended its investigation into Markwayne’s earnings in 2018 and the senator was ordered to repay $40,000 to one of his previous businesses.

Although Markwayen Mullin transferred ownership of the plumbing companies to his family, the senator continued to serve as a chief advertiser and a board member while still raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sean O’Brien shared a tweet on Wednesday where he said that unions create jobs, put more money in employees’ pockets, and make work safer. He added that what they do is to improve the lives of their members.

Host Bernie Sanders announced at the conclusion of Wednesday’s hearing that a class war was going on whether they wanted to recognize it or not. He argued that people sitting at the top had money and power.

Sanders added that these people have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to prevent ordinary employees from assembling to fight for dignity.