As the election season reaches its fever pitch, labor unions are rallying behind their chosen candidates. The Teamsters, a national union representing 1.3 million workers in the transportation industry and many other sectors, announced on Wednesday that they have opted not to endorse any presidential candidate this year.
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien reacted to criticism by defending the decision not to endorse a Republican or Democratic candidate on CNN Thursday, citing the Donald Trump campaign’s refusal to support the PRO Act, which gives unions more power to organize. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has already agreed to sign that bill into law.
“This was not an endorsement for the Republican Party,” O’Brien told CNN. “This is a wake-up call that the system is broken.”
But regional Teamsters have opted to go rogue. The 300,000-member West Coast Teamsters faction has thrown its support behind the vice president, signaling a strategic alignment with the Harris campaign. Ten other regional Teamsters councils have issued statements of support for Harris, including in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
“Trump wishes your bosses could just fire you for challenging their authority with a strike. Never forget that. Trump wants to eliminate your legally protected right to challenge your employer and demand the dignity and respect all hardworking Teamsters deserve,” said Rick Hicks, president of Teamsters Joint Council 28, in the division’s official endorsement of Harris.
Prominent labor unions American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, known collectively as the AFL-CIO, threw their support behind the Harris-Walz ticket with an endorsement earlier this month.
Other unions who’ve endorsed Harris over GOP nominee Trump are: the Service Employees International Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers; the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the United Steelworkers, to name a few.
One thing is clear: It’s the Democratic Party that stands with labor rights activists—figuratively and literally. President Joe Biden was the first sitting president to walk a picket line in a show of solidarity with striking United Auto Workers, and has acquired the nickname “Union Joe.” The Biden-Harris administration has been deemed a historically pro-labor administration, according to University of Rhode Island history professor Erik Loomis, who has authored three books on labor in America.
“In my view, the man dubbed ‘Union Joe’ has lived up to that claim,” Loomis wrote in the Ohio Capital Journal.
Harris is following that trajectory, with a pro-union agenda that focuses on an “opportunity economy” to rebuild a hollowed-out middle class. She has proposed a $25,000 down payment grant for first-time homeowners and tax cuts for middle-class families.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, spent Labor Day visiting with unions across the Rust Belt as they paid tribute to workers’ collective bargaining impact at in-person events. Meanwhile, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, held no public events to commemorate the holiday that celebrates workers. Trump did take the time on Labor Day eve to tell Fox News he “had every right” to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.
UAW President Shawn Fain, who stood next to Biden at the picket line one year ago, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, calling Trump “a scab” and describing Harris as “a fighter for the working class.”
UAW preceded Fain’s speech with an official endorsement of Harris in a YouTube video.
“We’ve got a choice,” Fain said. “We can put a billionaire back in office and let him and his buddies get even richer. Or we can elect somebody ready to stand with us. Somebody who’s walked a picket line.”
Labor unions are popular, with research showing nearly seven in 10 Americans support them, and organized labor has long played a pivotal role in presidential elections. Their shows of support for Harris could help sway the votes of millions of American workers.
