Union boss who spoke at the RNC blasts Trump over Elon Musk interview
Sean O’Brien, who became the first Teamsters president ever to speak at the Republican convention, said Trump’s suggestion that striking workers ought to be fired is “economic terrorism.”
Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, joined other unionized labor chiefs blasting former President Donald Trump over his suggestion during an interview with Elon Musk that striking workers ought to be fired.
?? What did Trump say, exactly?
During the interview Monday, Trump praised Musk for firing workers who went on strike.
“They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone,'” Trump said. “You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.”
It’s unclear which of Musk’s companies Trump was referring to.
↘? What was O’Brien’s response?
“Firing workers for organizing, striking, and exercising their rights as Americans is economic terrorism,” O’Brien said in a statement on Tuesday night.
O’Brien stirred controversy last month when he spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, becoming the first Teamsters president ever to do so. But the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has yet to endorse a candidate for president this cycle.
?? How did other labor unions respond?
He's for the billionaires. Not for you.
Donald Trump is a scab. #StandUpUAW pic.twitter.com/hj10zDPbzw— UAW (@UAW) August 13, 2024
The United Auto Workers union filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Trump campaign and Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla.
“Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
??? Harris picks up union endorsements
Meanwhile, most of America’s major labor organizations have endorsed Harris.
Among them:
United Auto Workers
UNITE
AFL-CIO
American Federation of Teachers
Service Employees International Union
United Food & Commercial Workers
Communications Workers of America
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
United Farm Workers
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
?? Teamsters union has yet to endorse a candidate
-O’Brien had said the Teamsters would make a formal endorsement following next week’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) — and after conducting an online straw poll of its rank-and-file members.
On Tuesday, the National Black Caucus of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (or TNBC) voted unanimously to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris — putting pressure on its parent union to follow suit.
“When people show you who they are, believe them and Trump showed us for 40 years who he really is: someone who is not for us,” TNBC Chair James Curbeam said in a statement. “Endorsing a candidate with his history would be a betrayal of the values that we have fought to uphold.”
A spokesperson for O’Brien told CNN that he requested speaking roles at both parties’ conventions. The DNC, so far, has not granted his request.
?? Biden made history by joining a picket line
Before President Biden dropped out of the race, he had made a point of showing his support for unionized labor.
In September, Biden joined striking members of the United Auto Workers union outside a General Motors facility in Michigan, becoming the first sitting president ever to join a picket line.
Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is also trying to appeal to unions. At a rally in Los Angeles earlier this week for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Walz claimed that he was the “first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan.”
That’s not entirely true: Trump was a member of the Screen Actors Guild when he was at the top of the GOP ticket in 2016 and 2020 before resigning in 2021.
?? Trump was endorsed by the Border Patrol union in the last 2 cycles
Trump has the backing of at least one union: the National Border Patrol Council — which represents more than 18,000 Border Patrol agents — endorsed him in 2016 and 2020. And while it has yet to issue a formal endorsement of Trump in 2024, the union issued a statement after Biden falsely claimed at the debate in Atlanta that it had endorsed him.
“To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden,” the union said in a statement posted on X.
