Teamsters president is doing Trump an 'unreasonably large favor': author

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters may not officially be endorsing a presidential candidate this year, but a scathing analysis concluded that its president has already done Donald Trump "an unreasonably large favor."

Sean O'Brien divided the union, one of America's largest when he spoke at the Republican National Convention. That divide only deepened after union leadership declined to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 28 years, with several local units coming forward to make their endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris. O'Brien's predecessor James P. Hoffa even condemned the move.

All of these decisions suggest that O'Brien is "confused" about his responsibility to workers and not sure how to handle politics as a union leader, wrote Timothy Noah for The New Republic published on Friday.

"This nondecision doesn’t smell to me like a declaration of independence. It smells like capitulation to the GOP," wrote Noah. The fact is, if you look at the Teamsters board's reasoning and the past four years of union policy from the Biden administration, none of this makes any sense.

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"Noah questioned a Teamsters’ announcement that the union could extract a "few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris."

"Oh, really? Not a dime’s worth of difference, huh? That’s surprising," Noah said. "It’s my understanding that Republicans oppose labor’s policy agenda across the board, whereas Democrats (although sometimes lacking sufficient enthusiasm) nearly always support labor."

The fact is, he wrote, Harris supports the PRO Act and opposes anti-union "right to work" laws, while Trump is the opposite — and in fact, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to bail out the Teamsters pension fund, as part of the American Rescue Act, which not a single Republican voted for.

The sole point of criticism O'Brien appears to have with Harris, according to his statements, is the Biden administration's decision to prevent a railroad strike two years ago without resolving the workers' main grievance about sick leave. While this was a "blunder," Noah wrote, "a few months later, the Biden administration undid most of the damage by quietly negotiating an agreement with the rail companies on sick leave."

O'Brien "won’t let this go," said Noah, and complained that neither party would promise never to intervene against railroad strikes even if it poses a clear threat to the economy, something "no major-party presidential candidate" would ever do.

Moreover, wrote Noah, while the Teamsters have conducted polls suggesting that rank and file members are divided and leaning toward Trump, "other unions aren’t passive with their members about elections. They perform outreach to educate them about each candidate’s positions."

Under O'Brien's watch, the Teamsters have not done this.

"O’Brien’s doing Trump an unreasonably large favor by withholding a Harris endorsement," concluded Noah — in a way that makes outreach by other unions in key Midwest states difficult.

All of this comes as O'Brien faces a challenge from union VP-at-large John Palmer in the next leadership election.