- Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention, a first for the union.
- O’Brien’s message was aimed at promoting bipartisan cooperation toward labor goals.
- Critics argued O’Brien’s speech legitimized President Trump’s anti-union record.
Even before Teamsters Chairman Sean O’Brien made history on Monday by becoming the first union leader to speak at the Republican National Convention, his fellow union members were outraged by his closeness to Donald Trump.
In a scathing op-ed published July 10, Teamsters Vice Chairman John Palmer said O’Brien’s arrival “will only normalize and make more acceptable the most anti-union party and president I’ve seen in my lifetime, regardless of the message.”
And when O’Brien met with Trump in January, James Curbeam, national chairman of the National Federation of Colored Labor Unions, called the former president “a scab masquerading as a pro-union man,” The New York Times reported.
Facing intense scrutiny from union members and some right-wing anti-union groups at the Republican National Convention, O’Brien made clear his purpose in speaking at the convention was to call for bipartisan cooperation to achieve the goals of the labor movement.
“The Teamsters are here to say that we are not beholden to anybody, to any political party,” O’Brien declared onstage before hundreds of delegates and the former president himself.
While O’Brien may have had good intentions in protecting union interests, national radio host and Teamsters member Rick Smith said he was the Republican Party’s “election show horse.”
Smith told Business Insider that he agreed with much of what O’Brien said on stage. Speaking to a room full of conservatives, the union leader blasted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, “corporatists” and “greedy employers.” But O’Brien also praised Trump, calling the former president “a candidate who is unafraid to listen to new, vocal and often critical voices.”
“The problem is, nobody in that room cared,” Smith said. “They knew why O’Brien was there: he was there to justify Trump’s terrible record.”
Smith said O’Brien also sent the message that “both sides are terrible for workers,” which he said isn’t true. He pointed out, for example, that Biden is spending billions of dollars to bail out the Teamsters pension fund in 2022.
“Saying ‘everyone sucks and everything is bad’ at the Republican National Convention was kind of an insult given that Joe Biden bailed out the National Union Pension Fund and Donald Trump’s record is very bad and Joe Biden’s record is very good,” Smith said.
O’Brien and the Teamsters continue to defend his decision to speak at the right-wing convention.
“The Teamsters have never feared democracy, but self-serving ideologues from the left and right, inside and outside the union, fear democracy,” Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Dennis previously told The Times.
When it comes to bipartisanship, Smith said, “every time we’ve had bipartisanship, labor has embraced it.” Instead, he said, O’Brien’s appeal to Republicans will divide labor.
“At a time when there’s unprecedented interest from people in joining or forming unions, I think this kind of division in the labor movement is unhelpful. It’s unhelpful to put a disruptive figure on a platform like this,” Smith said.
The Teamsters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
