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Just days after Vice President Kamala Harris met with leaders of the International Federation of Trucking Associations to advocate for their support (mostly Democrats), the union told her to kick rocks and refused to endorse either her or Donald Trump.
My great-grandfather was the boss of the Teamsters in Philadelphia in the mid-20th century and competed with Jimmy Hoffa for the position of national chairman of the union. I once asked him about how corrupt and gangster-ridden the legendary Hoffa was, but he never uttered a single disparaging word about Hoffa. He would simply say, in his native dialect, “Jimmy was a friend of the working man.”
Teamsters won't endorse president despite members' support for Trump
Decades later, this week the Teamsters leadership and their 1.5 million members and 500,000 retirees had to decide whether Trump or Harris would be their ally in the 2024 presidential election.
This astonishing move and direct disregard for Ms. Harris has led the union to decide not to endorse or commit its significant resources to either candidate, clearly due to pressure from its members.
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 15: Sean O'Brien, president of the International Union of Truck Drivers, speaks from the stage during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 15, 2024. Delegates, politicians and Republican Party stalwarts gathered in Milwaukee for the annual convention, which concluded with former President Donald Trump accepting the party's presidential nomination. The Republican National Convention runs from July 15-18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
“I voted for Biden,” the retired longtime Teamster union member told me in Washington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. “But you want the facts? I'll give you the grocery store facts, the electricity facts, the gas facts, all the facts from when he was elected to now.”
For him, these facts led him to vote for Donald Trump.
And he is not alone.
The results of the Teamsters' internal polling were surprising. Back in July, President Joe Biden (remember him?) was leading Donald Trump 44 to 36 percent. Fast forward to today, and Trump leads Harris 60 to 34 in online surveys and 58 to 31 in phone polls.
That's a big shift, more dramatic than any other major demographic. The severing of Joe Biden's longstanding roots in the labor movement will force lawmakers to make a clearer choice between Harris and Trump, which is bad news for the vice president.
That's bad news for many in the Teamsters leadership, who were outraged when union president Sean O'Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention, and for the left-leaning labor movement as a whole.
April 1966 – New York, NY: A close-up of James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union. (Getty Images)
In San Francisco, I met Ray, a Teamster in the hospitality industry who wore his lapel pin proudly, but who was also frustrated with the country's leadership.
“They don't seem to be focused on people like us,” he told me. “It's like they're playing a totally different game.”
Overall, the conversations I've had with union members across the country during this election cycle have varied greatly depending on whether they represent a private sector union, like the Teamsters, or a public sector union, like a teachers union.
Private sector union members have a lot to say about balancing their needs with the ability of the industry they know best to thrive. Public sector union members seem to expect that government has infinite funds and that they can always find a leprechaun to rob them of their pot of gold.
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If this huge wave of Teamster votes for Trump is mirrored by other unions like the United Auto Workers and service sector unions, and if that seems to be the case from the workers I've spoken to, and I think it is, the impact on the election could be profound.
Like many Americans, there may be a lot that many Teamsters don't like about Trump, which may explain why Joe Biden, who is, accurately or not, considered a more traditional Democrat than Harris, may have appealed to them.
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But without Biden’s great labor record and history, most Teamsters seem to have decided it’s time to move away from the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris and toward Trump’s promise to Make America and its wages Great Again.
More and more Teamsters today are looking to Trump, just as Pop did to Jimmy Hoffa long ago. They may see him as an imperfect, rough man, but increasingly they also see him as the working class's only ally.
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