Teamsters President Urged to Cancel Republican Convention Speech

Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien is facing mounting internal pressure to cancel his planned speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, with the union's vice president at large accusing the labor leader of kowtowing to a viciously anti-worker party and a GOP presidential hopeful whose first four years in the White House were marked by open attacks on the labor movement.

John Palmer, the Teamsters' vice president at large, wrote in an op-ed in New Politics earlier this week that O'Brien's scheduled appearance at Donald Trump's invitation "only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and president I've seen in my lifetime seem palatable."

"Does O'Brien intend to remind the anti-union delegates that labor unions exist to ensure that workers—regardless of their race, sex, gender, gender identity, or religion—equally enjoy the security and fairness that a written labor agreement provides?" Palmer asked. "Is he going to state the obvious fact that unions' ability to achieve these goals is being stripped away by the current overzealous Supreme Court? The majority of these justices have been appointed by the same Republicans who will be at this convention."

Palmer, who urged union members to demand that O'Brien cancel his planned convention appearance, isn't the only Teamsters official who has publicly raised concerns over what one commentator described as O'Brien's "Trumpian tilt."

"We will not allow the working-class labor movement to be destroyed by a scab masquerading as a pro-union advocate after doing everything in his power to destroy the very fabric of unions," James Curbeam, national chairman of the Teamsters National Black Caucus, wrote in a letter to Teamsters members after O'Brien announced a meeting with Trump earlier this year.

O'Brien has also met with President Joe Biden.

During his first term in the White House, Trump moved aggressively to gut worker protections and stacked federal courts and key agencies with anti-union officials. Trump's two labor secretaries, Alexander Acosta and Eugene Scalia, were both hostile to organized labor.

The Republican Party more broadly has long worked in concert with its corporate allies to weaken organized labor through so-called right-to-work laws and other means—a decadeslong effort that has had devastating material consequences for workers across the country.

Capital & Main reported Friday that Republicans' upcoming convention in Milwaukee has shined a spotlight on the Wisconsin GOP's "anti-union agenda." Former Gov. Scott Walker, a notorious enemy of organized labor, is a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

"We will not allow the working-class labor movement to be destroyed by a scab masquerading as a pro-union advocate after doing everything in his power to destroy the very fabric of unions."

O'Brien is scheduled to address the convention in a primetime address Monday night. A Teamsters spokeswoman told The New York Times earlier this week that O'Brien "looks forward to addressing a crowd that hasn't traditionally been open to union voices."

"But that is what democracy is all about," she added.

The Guardian's Michael Sainato noted Friday that O'Brien's appearance in Milwaukee will be the first time a Teamsters president has ever spoken at the Republican convention.

"In January 2024, the Teamsters PAC donated $45,000 to both the Democratic and Republican national committees, marking its first large donation to the Republican Party in years," Sainato wrote.

The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson wrote Thursday that "it's always possible that O'Brien may use his allotted speaking time to ask the Republicans to adopt the pro-union initiatives that Democrats support and that Republican members of Congress have to a person opposed, like the PRO Act, which would enable workers to unionize without fear of being fired, or raising the national minimum wage from its current $7.25."

"If O'Brien really wants to do the nation a service, he might speak forcefully against Trump's commitment to deporting undocumented immigrants," Meyerson added. "In my years covering labor, I've met a number of Teamsters who are themselves undocumented—the very workers and their families whom Trump has continually vowed to arrest, lock up, and deport. It's atop Trump's to-do list. It's hard to see how this would be good for the Teamsters."

O'Brien's conciliatory posture toward Trump and the Republican Party stands in sharp contrast with the approach taken by United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain, who has called Trump a "scab" and a pawn of the billionaire class of which he is a part.

The UAW endorsed Biden—the first sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line—in January, but the union is now grappling with mounting calls for the incumbent to end his reelection campaign following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month.

Reuters reported Friday that Fain "met with the union's executive board late on Thursday to discuss his deep concerns with President Joe Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump in the November election."

"Fain called together top officials at the nearly 400,000-member union to discuss concerns and what the union's options are," the news agency reported, citing unnamed sources. "The union is considering its next steps."