President Biden and former President Trump are seeking support from the Teamsters union, but the labor organization is keeping the likely candidates on tenterhooks.
The Teamsters president has asked to speak at both parties’ national conventions, a spokesman confirmed to The Hill – an unusual move given growing tension over who the influential group will pledge its support to.
The pro-labor community is confused by the Teamsters’ request. Many see Biden and the Democrats as natural choices, given the president’s record in the White House. Fears that politicians may support Trump have also grown, as polls show a consistently close race less than five months before Election Day.
“This is a return to the days when the Teamsters supported Nixon,” said a union leader in a swing state.
President Sean O’Brien’s request to appear at major events for both Democrats and Republicans – a development first reported by the New York Times – challenges the conventional wisdom that major unions would ultimately support Biden.
“I don’t think he likes Trump,” the union organizer said of O’Brien. “We all tend to think that the competitive model is critical to getting Democrats to do the right thing.”
“And if Republicans want to help, we welcome that and build bridges,” the source added.
A Teamsters spokesman said they typically wait until the conventions are over before making a formal endorsement.
Still, O’Brien’s desire to address opposing crowds is remarkable.
“It’s not very often that a union leader asks to speak at both conventions,” said Bob Bussel, director of the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon.
Teamsters officials have expressed interest in working with many different candidates this election cycle. Last year, officials met with third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. In January, they also met with Trump. The union’s political action group donated $45,000 to the Republican National Committee shortly thereafter, FEC records show, though the group also makes significant contributions to Democrats.
Trump has been trying to undermine Biden’s hard-won union support since 2020, when both candidates were vying for workers’ votes.
Biden meanwhile sat down with the leadership and Teamsters members in March, but it is not clear whether he got what he wanted. O’Brien left the meeting non-committal about who his union would support, knowing he still had some time to make a final decision. The Teamsters have long sided with the Democrats and supports Biden against Trump in the last cycle.
Other unions have already pledged their support to Biden, including the prominent United Steelworkers And North America’s construction unions and many in the community are hopeful about his prospects.
While union activists and organizers do not necessarily expect Trump to receive his approval, the long wait has created some uncertainty.
Polls in competitive districts like Michigan and Pennsylvania show differences in margins of error between the two candidates. Any major movement affecting working voters could cause further swings.
“I would be surprised if Trump got his support, but that doesn’t mean it’s not impossible,” Bussel said. If that happens, it would be “a slap in the face” for Biden as he tries to make up for ongoing deficits with other voting blocs.
National union leaders say they have taken steps to inform their members about Biden’s progress in office, including Ban Non-competition clauses, improvement over time Protections and support for striking auto workers. The bipartisan infrastructure bill was also seen as a huge boon for unions.
“Our union’s view is that Joe Biden is the most union-friendly president in generations, if not all time, and our union fully supports his re-election,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
“All the unions we’re dealing with here are fully behind Biden and see no need for a ‘both sides’ approach,” Rosselli said when asked about O’Brien’s request to hear the views of the two presidential candidates.
“About 24 percent of our members are Republicans, but we have no desire from our members or from me to support Donald Trump,” he said. “In fact, the opposite is true.”
Some say that O’Brien could be responding to a demand from his members – a major 1.3 million employees — engaging with both sides of the aisle. Unions typically have no say in hiring employers or other members and can have an ideologically diverse base. It could also simply be stress testing both parties’ agendas.
Bussel said O’Brien was doing his due diligence and trying to work across party lines, but added that the Teamsters chairman was also likely “trying to exploit the issue as much as possible.”
“It’s almost like being a non-aligned country during the Cold War,” Bussel said. “You really try to get the most out of your strategic position.”
Eddie Vale, a Democratic strategist with longstanding ties to the AFL-CIO, argues that many underestimate the number of union members among Republicans.
Vale said the party leader’s attempt to act in a bipartisan manner was “an interesting move to find out whether Republicans are serious about reaching out to union members.”
Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, declined to comment on whether Democrats plan to give O’Brien a speaking slot, but the campaign is trying to win over the union by highlighting Biden’s greatest accomplishments.
“There is only one candidate in this race who is fighting for American workers and creating good-paying union jobs here at home, and that is President Biden,” Munoz told The Hill.
“Donald Trump has fought against workers’ rights his entire life, and now Trump is proudly running to move union jobs overseas – just like he did in his first term. Joe Biden fights every day for unions and workers across the country and will continue to work to win the support of the Teamsters.”
The Trump team did not respond to a request for comment.
Polls show that both Democratic and Republican voters are interested in the union election. NBC News Opinion poll from February suggests that Biden still performs better than Trump on union budgets, albeit by a smaller margin than in 2020.
“Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will likely decide the election,” said Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic strategist and head of a consulting firm that works with unions.
“All three are states with a great union history and a huge base,” he added.
The competition is tougher than in the past, Rosenthal said. Both candidates have to do more to gain support than they are offering at this point in the race. For this reason, the costly endorsements are more sought after.
“The union votes are not where they need to be right now to win these states,” he said. “Union support is really, really valuable right now.”
Waiting to declare your support until after the Republican convention in Milwaukee in July and the Democratic convention in Chicago in August gives you less time to capitalize on big-name support. That time frame isn’t great from the candidate’s perspective, but strategists say the Teamsters still have time to pull out all the stops for their candidate between Labor Day and Election Day.
“Biden’s record on union issues exceeds anything anyone could have imagined,” Rosenthal said. “I can hardly imagine a union not supporting him.”
