Teamsters Pass on Endorsing Trump or Harris for President
The Teamsters will not endorse a presidential candidate ahead of the 2024 election.
The announcement, made shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, came just a day after rank-and-file members met with Vice President Kamala Harris at a roundtable to discuss several issues relevant to the union’s 1.3 million members.
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But in the end, the union seemingly wasn’t impressed with the conversation. A statement from the Teamsters says the union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either Harris or her election opponent, former President Donald Trump.
“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,” said president Sean O’Brien in a statement. 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.”
This marks the first time in 28 years that the Teamsters have not endorsed a presidential candidate, when the union endorsed neither President Bill Clinton or Republican candidate Bob Dole ahead of the 1996 race.
The Teamsters endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020, and its backing of Democratic candidates goes all the way back to 2000. The union endorsed presidential aspirants including Al Gore, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton, as well as President Barack Obama ahead of his 2008 and 2012 victories.
President George H.W. Bush was the union’s last endorsed Republican candidate in 1988.
O’Brien himself had taken more of an approach to appeal to both sides of the aisle ahead of the election, appearing at the Republican National Convention upon getting an invite—becoming the first Teamsters boss to do so. But the attempt came amid reported deep internal divisions within the union, with a July report from Reuters first that the union may not endorse any candidate.
Roughly an hour ahead of the endorsement, the union released its internal polling data, with two member polls showcasing a clear preference toward Trump.
A national electronic poll held after Biden said he wouldn’t seek re-election revealed that Trump led Harris by a substantial 59.6 percent to 34 percent of members. That voting window was held from July 24 to Sep. 15, and was independently managed by a third-party, BallotPoint Election Services. The Teamsters did not indicate how many members voted in the poll.
This was a considerable shift from polling numbers of April, in which Biden held the lead in endorsements at 44.3 percent. Trump was behind at 36.4 percent, while third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took in 5.6 percent of the vote. Nearly 300 Teamsters local unions conducted the straw polls.
A phone-based poll held from Sept. 9-15 resulted in a similar outcome to the electronic ballot, with Trump having the commanding 58 percent lead against Harris’ 31 percent. Six percent of Teamsters respondents were undecided in their presidential preference, while 5 percent said they didn’t know who to endorse.
The union said that its member polling said that a lack of majority support for Vice President Harris and no universal support among the membership for former President Trump meant that there was no definitive support for either party’s nominee.
It appears the presidential roundtables may have done both candidates in, at least from the perspective of Teamsters leadership.
During those meetings, which were also held with President Biden, the union shared feedback from members in the railroad and airline industries who work under the Railway Labor Act. A major point of contention for those workers was Biden’s intervention in rail negotiations to close out 2022, which effectively forced Teamsters members and other union employees to accept a new contract—despite many not supporting the deal.
In roundtable discussions with Trump in January and Harris this month, neither candidate promised not to intervene to force similar contracts, the union said.
Harris agreed on some of the union’s positions, pledging to sign the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. She also criticized “right-to-work” laws that the union says are enacted to bankrupt unions.
In states where right-to-work laws exist, it is up to each employee at a workplace to decide whether to join the union and pay dues, even though all workers are protected by the collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the union. But unions argue that they lose bargaining power since employees don’t have to join.
Teamsters leadership said Trump would not commit to veto national right-to-work legislation if he returned to the White House.
“‘Right-to-work’ laws only exist to try to kill labor unions,” said Teamsters general secretary-treasurer Fred Zuckerman. “It is a red line for the Teamsters and must be for any union when a candidate for elected office does not oppose such anti-worker legislation. It’s too important an issue for the labor movement as a whole to be left up to state legislatures.”