In an unprecedented address, Sean O’Brien, the president of the powerful Teamsters union, delivered remarks at the Republican national convention on Monday night.
In addressing the convention, O’Brien broke with most major unions in the US, which have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind Joe Biden.
During his speech, O’Brien thanked Donald Trump “for opening the RNC’s doors” to the union – whose leaders have never spoken at the Republican national convention – and shot back at criticism over his willingness to appear at the former president’s invitation.
“I travel all across this country and meet with my members every week,” said O’Brien. “I see American workers being taken for granted, workers being sold out to big banks, big tech corporations, the elite.”
Backlash from “the left”, O’Brien said, “is why it’s so important for me to be here today”. That comment, followed by his resounding exclamation that Trump proved himself to be “one tough SOB” after the assassination attempt on Saturday drew a standing ovation from the crowd.
For the rest of his speech, O’Brien railed against corporate greed, demanded “long-term investment in the American worker” and implored lawmakers to seek bipartisanship in Congress.
“Most legislation is never meant to go anywhere,” said O’Brien. “It’s all talk – and in America, talk isn’t cheap. It’s very expensive. It comes at the cost of our own country.”
During his remarks, the crowd often seemed puzzled and sat in a silence punctuated occasionally by applause when O’Brien spoke in more general terms about America’s “elites”.
O’Brien’s decision to appear at the Republican convention came just hours after Trump announced that he had chosen the rightwing populist Ohio senator JD Vance to run alongside him on the Republican ticket. Vance, who has invoked his family’s midwestern and Appalachian roots in a nod to working-class voters, has embraced populist rhetoric while touting a less-than-friendly labor record. Vance opposed the Pro Act, which organized labor rallied around, and introduced legislation that would legalize company unions, corporate labor formations outlawed by the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.
O’Brien’s remarks bookended an evening of speeches focused largely on the economy – a core issue for the Trump campaign and one that O’Brien could address with special authority given his role as a union leader. His was the second speech from a union official that evening – in brief remarks, Bobby Bartels, the business manager of a Steamfitters local in New York, endorsed Trump to cheers from the crowd of Republican delegates and conservative activists.
Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), slammed Trump in a speech shortly after he announced his third run for the presidency, calling him a “scab” and saying: “If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member – he’d be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker.”
After Trump announced Vance as his running mate, Sara Nelson, the president of the union representing flight attendants, wrote on Twitter/X that “behind all his slick rhetoric, JD Vance is just another shill for the corporate class who will sell out workers to corporate America. This ticket isn’t pro-worker or pro-union. It’s the billionaire ticket through and through.”
Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation in the US, called the Trump-Vance ticket “a corporate CEO’s dream and a worker’s nightmare” and vowed that the federation would “continue educating union voters every single day” on topics like Project 2025, the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s playbook for a Republican presidency.
When O’Brien met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and when the union later donated $45,000 to the Republican National Committee, it sparked outrage from progressive members.
Richard Hooker Jr, the secretary treasurer of Teamsters local 623 and vice-president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO board, has on multiple occasions spoken out against the union’s increasingly friendly relations with the Republican party.
“Republicans have been, for the most part anti-union, anti-labor and anti-working class,” said Hooker. “Labor has to be together. We have to take a position like the AFL-CIO – Shawn Fain said ‘Donald Trump is a scab’ and that’s the same language that all of us should use.”
