Teamsters leader says Harris, Trump wouldn’t ‘commit’

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien told The Hill that the union did not endorse Vice President Harris or former President Trump “because both candidates didn’t commit on the core issues that we need to get accomplished on behalf of our members.”

This is only the third time the union hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate since 1960, and comes after a closely-watched process that involved roundtables with both candidates, extensive member polling and the first appearance by a Teamsters president on the Republican National Convention stage.

“We’re grateful that they came in to see our members, but there was a lot of dancing around a lot of these questions,” O’Brien said.

Issues of importance to the Teamsters include the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would bolster the ability of workers to form a union and negotiate with their employers, and opposing the national right to work.

While Harris has voiced her support for the PRO Act on the campaign trail, O’Brien said, “she won’t explain how she’s gonna get it done.”

“We want direct dialogue. We want answers. We don’t want, you know, false hopes and dreams masqueraded with rhetoric,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien has worked to make inroads with Republicans to advance his union’s policy priorities, and fueled speculation that the union could once again endorse a GOP presidential candidate when he spoke at the RNC and after the union’s PAC donated $45,000 to the Republican National Committee earlier this year for the first time in two decades.

But when asked what O’Brien would say to the 60 percent of his members who wanted the union to endorse Trump, the union leader reiterated that “we couldn’t get commitments on our issues.”

“We can advise, but at the end of the day, our job is not to dictate to our members. It’s to give them information so that they can make the best decision on behalf of themselves and their families,” O’Brien said.

He told reporters Monday that member polling would be a “significant” part of the endorsement process, and the results of those polls released Wednesday show members preferred Trump to Harris.

In a Teamsters-commissioned survey conducted by an independent third party between July 24 and Sept. 15, 59.6 percent of Teamsters members voted to endorse Trump, compared to 34 percent for Harris.

In a separate Teamsters-commissioned poll during the week ending Sunday, 58 percent of Teamsters members voted to endorse Trump, compared to 31 percent who voted to endorse Harris.

Notably, the polling conducted before President Biden dropped out of the race in July showed Teamsters preferred Biden to Trump, 44.3 percent to 36.3 percent.

Major labor unions and organizations including the United Auto Workers, the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association and the Service Employees International Union endorsed Biden and were quick to endorse Harris after the president dropped out.

But O’Brien bristled at the notion that the union should automatically endorse the Democratic presidential candidate. Although the Teamsters has consistently endorsed Democratic candidates in recent election cycles, including Biden in 2020, the union has endorsed GOP candidates, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.