At the Republican National Convention, O’Brien will “call on political leaders to take action and put American workers above the interests of American corporations,” Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Dennis told The Post.
O’Brien, who was invited to speak by former President Donald Trump, has used his support for labor unions as political influence in Washington. Most major labor unions have rallied behind President Biden, who has made great efforts to defend labor unions.
Dennis said O’Brien has also asked to speak at the Democratic National Convention in August but has not yet received an invitation.
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The Teamsters, which has about 1.3 million members, many of them in key battleground states, won’t announce its endorsement until after both party conventions, Dennis said last week.
O’Brien explained that the union had decided to wait to announce its support this year in order to carefully evaluate its options, and said it would “not take for granted” the members’ vote.
Some labor experts say O’Brien may feel pressured to take into account the diverse political leanings of his union’s members because he won the union’s top job in 2021 running as a reform candidate who promised greater membership involvement in union decision-making. O’Brien also recognizes that many of the Teamsters’ rank-and-file members are Republicans and Trump supporters, experts say.
Trump and O’Brien’s relationship began earlier this year, when the two met privately at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in January. That meeting infuriated some of the union’s left-wing leaders and members, with one official describing Trump as “a known union destroyer, a strikebreaker and a seditionist.”
The Teamsters’ president and rank-and-file members met separately with both Trump and Biden at the union’s headquarters in Washington. The union donated $45,000 to the Republican National Convention Fund this year, its largest donation to the Republican Party in decades.
The company also sent $135,000 to the Democratic National Committee in December and donated $15,000 in March.
President Trump’s announcement on Monday that he had chosen Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate marks another notable move toward the Republican Party’s rightward stance. A populist platform that blends conservative positions on culture war issues with economic nationalism aimed at protecting American workers from free trade policies and deindustrialization.
Vance joined autoworker picket lines in Ohio late last year but has opposed pro-labor legislation, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) joined the autoworkers and the Teamsters on the strike line, in return for which the Teamsters donated $5,000 to Hawley’s reelection campaign this year.
Trump has portrayed himself as a “pro-labor” advocate for the working class, but he has supported many policies that limit the power of workers. As president, he appointed leaders of the NLRB whose policies and rulings have weakened workers’ rights. Trump has little support from labor unions outside of law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Biden, the self-described “most pro-union president ever,” has made significant strides for labor unions. Many of Biden’s policies benefit the Teamsters, including a plan to save their pensions with about $36 billion in 2022, part of the American Rescue Plan that restored the retirement accounts of about 350,000 Teamsters members.
