Teamsters O’Brien Does Not Endorse Either Presidential Candidate and His Locals Revolt

September 20, 2024

From NYT, edited for length and run-on sentences.

Teamsters President and Republican Convention speaker Sean O’Brien is dividing his ranks by not endorsing Harris, and the ranks are revolting.

The union endorsed President Biden in 2020, as well as the Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

But O’Brien has joined the cult. O’Brien kissed the Trump ring and his substantial ass, getting invited to Mar-a-LOCO this summer with Trump granting him his wish for a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention.

The Teamsters’ National Black Caucus, more than a half-dozen Teamsters locals, and members of the union’s national leadership have endorsed Ms. Harris over Trump Kiss-Ass O’Brien’s objections.

🖕 you O’Brien.

Opponents have organized a Teamsters Against Trump effort that has undermined KA O’Brien two years into his first term as president. 🖕 you O’Brien

After the national union declined to endorse on Wednesday, two Teamsters joint governing councils in the West, which cover 300,000 workers including those in the swing state of Nevada, announced they would back Ms. Harris. 🖕 you O’Brien.

Several other locals followed suit, including union locals in Michigan and Wisconsin. 🖕 you O’Brien.

The union’s membership was clearly divided. When Mr. Biden was still in the race earlier this year, Mr. O’Brien asked each Teamsters local to hold a straw poll. The Teamsters released those results on Wednesday: Mr. Biden had won a plurality, 44 percent to Mr. Trump’s 36 percent. 

The Harris campaign tried to mitigate the blow, noting that of the ten largest unions in the country, only the Teamsters had not backed her and that the umbrella labor organization, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., represents about ten times the number of workers in the Teamsters and is working hard on Ms. Harris’s behalf.

The decision not to endorse reflected the divisions within the union’s rank-and-file. Leaders who backed Ms. Harris noted that the Biden administration had done much to like. Mr. Biden’s Covid relief bill, the American Rescue Plan, included the one measure that Teamsters leaders wanted the most — a huge bailout of pension plans that will restore retirement accounts at the union for three decades.

“When we were all worried about what was going to happen with our pensions, I remember watching Kamala Harris cast that vote, and there was nothing but applause all around,” said Michelle Espinoza, 51, a member of Teamsters Local 135 in Indianapolis who drives a semi-truck cross country with her husband every week. (Ms. Harris broke the tie on the American Rescue Plan.)

But working-class voters, especially white men, have favored Mr. Trump, a point Ms. Harris conceded on Monday when she told Teamsters leaders that she understood the union’s rank-and-file was looking at issues beyond labor, such as immigration.

She implored Teamsters officials to tell members that she had backed a bipartisan border security bill negotiated in the Senate and then killed at the behest of Mr. Trump.