Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has reportedly snubbed the Teamsters Union — which represents more than one million members — after the union’s president gave a populist speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) to court GOP lawmakers on pro-worker policies.
At the RNC, Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien delivered a historic address and praised former President Donald Trump for inviting him to speak. The goal of the speech, O’Brien said, was to make inroads in the Republican Party, which increasingly represents the nation’s working- and middle-class.
“President Trump had the backbone to open the doors to this Republican convention, and that’s unprecedented. No other nominee in the race would’ve invited the Teamsters into this arena,” O’Brien said:
We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtables what they are: They are unions for big business … here’s the fact: Against these gigantic multinational corporations, an individual has zero power. It is only when Americans band together in democratic unions that we win real improvements on wages, benefits, and working conditions. [Emphasis added]
Since the speech, Politico reports, Harris’s campaign has snubbed the Teamsters.
“The union said that Harris had not yet responded to a request to have a roundtable discussion with Teamsters’ leaders, and that O’Brien had not received an invite from Democrats to speak before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago,” Politico reports:
O’Brien’s RNC speech revealed the tensions within the labor movement in recent years as union leaders wrestle with the challenge of Trump-supporting rank and file members and the new populist-orientation of the Republican Party. The address also served to remind Democrats that organized labor’s support can’t be taken for granted in November. [Emphasis added]
…
“We are going to support the elected leaders who support workers,” said Kara Deniz for the Teamsters. “We are not just going to blindly support candidates based on their past record if they’re not doing something for us at the moment.” [Emphasis added]
In July, sources told Reuters that the Teamsters Union is even considering withholding an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election — a move that would effectively serve as a green light for members to support Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).
Vance, in particular, has built his political career around reorienting the GOP to its working- and middle-class roots and away from Wall Street and Chamber of Commerce bigwigs.
“[Republicans] have to have a less hostile relationship with labor,” Vance said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in 2022. “… I think we need to pass legislation to give the union membership more power and the current union leadership a little bit less power because they’re still so in the tank for the Democratic Party.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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