Teamster President O’Brien gives prime-time speech at GOP convention

MILWAUKEE —Declaring the Teamsters “aren’t beholden to anyone or any party,” union President Sean O’Brien used a prime-time speech to the Republican National Convention to urge the union-hostile party to work with organized labor.

O’Brien claimed to speak for not just his union, which he estimated is split 50-50 between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden, but for workers as a whole.

“I feel confident I’m representing the working people of America, union and non-union,” O’Brien said.

He thanked Trump for having “the backbone” to open the convention doors to the Teamsters. He told a Fox News interviewer that he seeks a similar speaking slot with the Democrats at their convention in August in Chicago, but hasn’t heard back yet.

After profusely thanking Trump and praising him as “one tough S.O.B.,” O’Brien launched into a speech some saw as a signal to union workers that it was ok to vote for the Republican nominee.

One retired Teamsters leader said it “legitimizes Donald Trump in the eyes of workers.” Tom Leedham pointed out that Trump is “claiming he is the president of working people” and that O’Brien “helps him with that image.”

O’Brien’s message, however, was filled with a takedown of corporate greed, anti-union employers, and neoliberal free trade – all traditional labor critiques – but it spent little time concentrating on points made recently by another Teamsters leader, John Palmer. Trump is a “known union-buster, scab, and insurrectionist,” Palmer wrote in a letter in January after refusing to attend a meeting between O’Brien and Trump.

O’Brien laced his 17-minute speech on July 15 with populist phrases often heard from right-wing GOPers, including Trump himself. If the Republican beats Biden this fall, O’Brien would hope to be a union leader invited into the White House. But O’Brien also took issue with many of his hosts.

“Some Republicans subscribe to the claptrap that unions destroy companies,” O’Brien said. Voting records show the words “some Republicans” understates the party’s opposition to workers’ causes.

O’Brien spent much of his speech blasting corporations, the elite, and a “broken system” in Washington that sees a revolving door between Congress or federal agencies and lobby shops.

He said Republicans must join in a bipartisan coalition for legislation to give unionists a fair shot at organizing and bargaining. O’Brien did not specifically mention the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, labor’s #1 legislative priority, which would do just that. Republican Senate filibuster threats have killed the PRO Act and the party platform is silent on it.

But O’Brien took a “both sides” approach, criticizing both the corporate class and what he called “extremes in both major parties,” who, he said, have criticized Trump’s invitation to him to speak. And he said corporate elites rigged the system so that “workers always lose.”

O’Brien, who described himself as “a lifelong Democrat,” left unmentioned several key issues.

• One was Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges due to a hush-money cover-up and illegal campaign contributions in 2016.
• Another was Trump’s misogyny and white nationalism, both very harmful to the interests of workers.
• A third omission was Trump’s aiding, abetting, and inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Trumpite insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
• A fourth was that a Democratic-run Congress—pushed by the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, and the Auto Workers—replaced the jobs-losing corporate-written NAFTA “free trade” pact with the labor-friendly U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Omission of the insurrection brought O’Brien a sharply tweeted rejoinder from Fred Crow, Jr., Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 436 in Valley View, Ohio: “I support trying to work with Republicans. I draw the line at treason, and that’s exactly what January 6th was.”

Sharply criticized the Biden administration

O’Brien sharply criticized the Biden administration for “high inflation at the gas pump and the grocery store,” even though inflation is declining and it is corporate price hikes geared to higher profits, more than anything else, that have been driving inflation. He said Teamsters’ past endorsements of Democratic presidential nominees—which always came after the two parties’ conventions–produced little in return. He did not say what teaming up with Republicans has produced.

The Teamsters, O’Brien said, demand a trade policy that puts workers first and other policies to cut inflation, and prevent jobs from moving overseas.

Under Biden, and pushed by unions, the USMCA is reducing low-wage competition from Mexico through strong and enforceable labor rights there, new non-company unions, and mandated large increases in Mexico’s minimum wage and its wages in auto and parts plants.

O’Brien ducked making a personal endorsement of Trump, whom the convention formally nominated before O’Brien spoke. But he declared the former president “is not afraid of hearing from new, loud and critical voices.” Trump. Of course, did not exhibit that tolerance when he held the White House from 2017-21.

O’Brien also gave favorable reviews to Sens. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, whom Trump had just announced as his vice presidential pick, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who seeks re-election this fall.

Vance has a lifetime zero percentage on AFL-CIO key votes, covering his first year as a senator, 2023. Hawley drew a zero last year and has an 11% pro-worker record during his career. “In this day and age, there’s nothing better than having a U.S. Marine as a vice-presidential candidate,” O’Brien declared.

And O’Brien hailed Hawley for walking picket lines with the Teamsters in St. Louis and with the Auto Workers in Wentzville, carefully not mentioning Hawley was one of the main Capitol Hill inciters of the Trumpite Jan. 6, 2021 invasion, insurrection and coup d’etat try.

O’Brien claimed Hawley has reversed his position and now opposes a national right-to-work law, and “has been very supportive of legislation against employers who try to short their workers.” The senator’s official website is silent, however, on both issues.

Hawley does not support the Protect the Right To Organize (PRO) Act, labor’s top legislative priority. It would remove many of the corporate and court roadblocks to organizing, bargaining, and holding bosses accountable for breaking labor law.

Hawley welcomed O’Brien’s praise. “It’s time the Republicans again become the party of working people,” the senator tweeted after the speech. Hawley offered no promises about how he intended to defend the interests of workers this year and in the future.

O’Brien said the union is doing town halls among its 331 locals and running opinion polls using QR codes before making a decision. But right now, he said Biden and Trump are running “neck-and-neck” among the union’s 1.3 million members.

C.J. Atkins and John Wojcik contributed to this story.