Earlier this 12 months, the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters briefly employed a person whose picture was synonymous with the notorious “Unite the Right” rally that introduced white supremacists to Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
The Teamsters employed Peter Cytanovic for an administrative job on the union’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., earlier than firing him throughout his probationary interval, in line with a supply with data of the scenario. The union was unaware of Cytanovic’s previous when he got here onboard, the supply mentioned.
Greater than seven years earlier, Cytanovic, then a school scholar, traveled from Reno, Nevada, and marched amongst neo-Nazis within the “alternative right” demonstration on the College of Virginia grounds. The dramatic Getty picture of a screaming, white-polo-clad Cytanovic — then 20 years previous, his face lit by tiki torches — grew to become maybe probably the most iconic picture from the rally. He has since mentioned he’s not a white nationalist.
Cytanovic declined to debate his stint with the Teamsters throughout a quick trade outdoors his dwelling on Wednesday.
“They can suck dick,” he mentioned of the union, “and you can get the fuck out of here.”
The Teamsters declined to touch upon the matter.
HuffPost has discovered that Cytanovic instructed the Teamsters he had beforehand labored as an organizer for the Service Workers Worldwide Union, one other powerhouse within the labor motion. SEIU declined to remark.
Cytanovic’s hiring at one of many largest and strongest U.S. unions first surfaced publicly in an nameless Reddit submit final month. Somebody who recognized themselves as an worker at Teamsters headquarters mentioned they discovered about their new co-worker’s Charlottesville journey after googling his identify. The poster mentioned they reported their findings to a supervisor, and Cytanovic was terminated.
On Tuesday, John Palmer, a member of the Teamsters’ government board, shared on Fb a letter he had despatched to the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, asking vital questions in regards to the rent, together with how the background test was achieved. Palmer is a vocal O’Brien critic who’s introduced a run towards the incumbent president within the union’s 2026 election.
“When we hire somebody at the international, they vet people and it takes at least three or four people signing off,” Palmer instructed HuffPost, referring to the principle union, slightly than its native associates. “I can’t speak to the vetting process.”
Cytanovic has maintained because the days instantly following the Charlottesville rally that he’s “not the angry racist [people] see in that photo.” He mentioned he was drawn to the rally largely to defend the statue of Accomplice Gen. Robert E. Lee as a logo of white, European heritage. Anti-racist activists had urged native officers to take away the Lee monument from a Charlottesville park.
“I hope people acknowledge that being a party to the alternative right does not make me an evil Nazi, and that being pro-white right now is dangerous, and being pro-white doesn’t mean I’m anti-anyone else,” he instructed Nevada’s Channel 2 Information after the rally.
That article described Cytanovic as a “self-proclaimed white nationalist,” a label he disclaimed in a 2019 interview with The Beaver, a publication on the London Faculty of Economics, the place Cytanovic was learning for a grasp’s diploma on the time.
“I thought white nationalism at the time was American nationalism, being proud of our history without condemning,” he mentioned. “Without being an atomised individual, being part of a wider community. I’m ethnically American.”
Cytanovic additionally mentioned he and different rally contributors bear blame for the demise of Heather Heyer, the counterprotester who was killed when a far-right demonstrator drove a automobile right into a crowd the weekend of the rally.
“I caused hurt. There’s nothing I can do to change that now,” he mentioned.
The viral 2017 picture of Cytanovic has dogged him professionally and academically for years, lengthy earlier than his temporary time with the Teamsters.
As HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias reported in 2021, Cytanovic joined the Nevada Nationwide Guard however was rapidly booted earlier than attending primary coaching. Though he had handed legal and fingerprint checks, a guard spokesperson mentioned Cytanovic was expelled on account of his “affiliations.”
Earlier than that, fellow college students on the College of Nevada, Reno, had pushed for his expulsion, although the varsity’s administration resisted such calls on free-speech grounds. Nevertheless, Cytanovic did find yourself resigning from his job with a campus escort service that gives free rides to college students at evening.
