WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Wednesday declined to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump as presidential candidates, saying neither candidate has sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.
“Unfortunately, neither of the two major candidates has been able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure that the interests of working people always come before the interests of big business,” Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We have demanded commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in key union campaigns or core Teamsters industries – and to respect our members’ right to strike – but we have been unable to achieve those commitments.”
The Teamsters’ rejection was a reflection of a union torn over issues of political identity and policy, and reflects a broader national divide. Vice President Harris has been unequivocal in his support of unions, while former President Trump appealed to many white workers despite openly disdaining unions at times. By not endorsing anyone, the Teamsters are essentially giving up some of their influence in the November election, as both candidates claimed to have the support of their members.
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Harris’ campaign, pointed out in an emailed statement that more than three dozen retired Teamsters spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month and supported Harris. Their pensions were saved by the passage of the Butch Lewis Act in 2021, which President Joe Biden and Harris championed.
“While Donald Trump says striking workers should be fired, Vice President Harris has literally walked picket lines and advocated for unions her entire career,” Hitt said. “The Vice President’s strong union record is why Teamsters chapters across the country have already endorsed her — alongside the overwhelming majority of unions.”
The Teamsters said Wednesday that internal polls of their members showed Trump had the edge over Harris. The Republican campaign team immediately seized on the fact, sending out an email saying that the “rank and file of the Teamsters union supports Donald Trump for president.”
Trump called the Teamsters’ decision not to support the organization a “great honor.”
“It’s a great honor,” he said. “They’re not going to support the Democrats. That’s a big deal.”
Harris met with a group of Teamsters on Monday, as she has long courted organized labor and made middle-class support a central political goal. Trump also met with a group of Teamsters in January and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, O’Brien said the lack of endorsement was a sign that candidates will need to support the Teamsters going forward. “This should be an eye-opener for 2028,” he said. “If people want the support of the most powerful union in North America, whether they’re Democrat or Republican, then they should start doing something to support our members,” he said.
The Teamsters’ decision not to endorse Harris came just weeks before the November 5 election, significantly later than the decisions of other major unions such as the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers and United Auto Workers, which had decided to provide funding to vote for Harris.
Given that O’Brien faced mighty reactions from some Teamsters members after his speech at the Republican National Convention, it’s no surprise that the union decided against supporting him, says Art Wheaton, director of the labor studies department at Cornell University.
Trump’s praise for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who allegedly fired striking workers, made support for Trump very unlikely, Wheaton said. “The members were not completely unanimous,” he said.
Marick Masters, an emeritus economics professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies labor issues, said the lack of support from the Teamsters indicates a realignment of union membership.
For many workers, issues such as gun control, abortion and border security are more critical than Trump’s anti-union statements, Masters said.
The Teamsters outlined their objections to the candidates in a statement and began opposing a collective bargaining agreement enacted by Congress in 2022 for members working in the railroad sector.
The union wanted a commitment from both candidates not to employ the Railroad Labor Code to resolve wage disputes and avoid shutting down the nation’s infrastructure. But Harris and Trump both wanted to keep that option open, even though the Teamsters said it would reduce their bargaining power.
Harris has pledged to sign the PRO Act, which would strengthen union protections and is supported by the Teamsters. Trump did not promise during his roundtable with the Teamsters to veto a proposal that would make it harder to unionize nationwide.
Other unions are hesitant to support either presidential candidate. The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America union finally endorsed Harris on Friday with the caveat that “the way the party leadership engineered Biden’s replacement at the top of the ballot with Vice President Kamala Harris was thoroughly undemocratic,” the union leadership said in a statement.
But the lack of support for the Teamsters also suggests indifference toward the Biden-Harris administration, which signed a law saving the pensions of millions of union retirees, including many Teamsters members.
As part of its 2021 pandemic relief package, the administration passed the Butch Lewis Act to save the underfunded pensions of more than a million union members and retirees. The law was named after a retired Ohio trucker and Teamsters union leader who spent the last years of his life preventing massive cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund.
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AP writers Fatima Hussein and Michelle Price contributed to this report.
