The Teamsters International, a powerful US transportation workers union that represents over 1.3 million workers, declined to endorse a candidate ahead of November’s presidential election – but released data suggesting most of its members backed Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.
Polling conducted before Joe Biden, who in 2023 became the first sitting president to join a picket line, dropped out of the race, showed that the union’s members preferred Biden to Trump, 44.3% to 36.3%, according to the Union.
In polling conducted after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris 59.6% of members said they wanted the union to endorse Trump over 34% for Harris.
The Teamsters’ decision to not make an election endorsement was the first time the union has chosen not to make an endorsement since 1996. The Union has endorsed every Democratic candidate since 2000.
It comes in the wake of scrutiny of its president, Sean O’Brien, becoming the first Teamsters leader to address the Republican national convention in July.
John Palmer, vice-president at large at the Teamsters, called the decision to appear at the convention, “unconscionable” given Trump’s record opposing labor unions.
Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, met with the Teamsters this week for a roundtable discussion prior to the decision. Trump and Joe Biden attended roundtables with the union earlier this year.
“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before big business,” O’Brien said in a statement on Wednesday. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries – and to honor our members’ right to strike – but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The union’s vice-president-at-large, John Palmer, told Politico that 14 Teamsters board members voted to not endorse a candidate, while 3 voted to endorse Harris, and none voted to endorse Trump. He was among the three who voted to endorse Harris, and called the decision not to endorse “cowardice”.
The Teamsters National Black Caucus endorsed Harris last month.
In response to the non-endorsement, Teamsters against Trump, a grassroots group of Teamster members and retirees, announced they will expand campaigning efforts to elect vice-president Kamala Harris.
The Teamsters councils representing half a million workers in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada also came out on Wednesday to endorse Harris, the campaign noted in an email.
“When it comes to my vote for President, as a proud Teamster there’s no contest. Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about the working class. As President, Trump didn’t lift a finger to help Teamsters whose pensions were in danger. Instead, he installed his billionaire friends in the White House and did everything he could to stop workers from organizing into unions,” said James Larkin, a member of Teamsters Local 299 in Detroit, Michigan and member of the group, in a statement.
The Trump campaign welcomed the Teamsters’ decision, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt, saying in a statement, “while the Teamsters Executive Board is making no formal endorsement, the hardworking members of the Teamsters have been loud and clear.
In a statement posted to her personal X account, House Speaker Emeritus, Nancy Pelosi, called the Teamsters decision “disappointing”, and said, “Donald Trump refused to support a pension bill for Teamsters. It was Biden-Harris and Democrats who saved Teamsters pensions in the Butch Lewis Act of our American Rescue Plan – without one Republican vote.”
