The leadership of Teamsters has maintained far-left values, even as Teamsters members have drifted right.
Republicans don’t need radical union leaders. Instead, they need the working-class voters that union leaders claim to represent but often don’t.
W hat do Republicans stand for: conservative causes like low taxes and worker freedom, or left-wing causes like public-sector unions and workplace coercion?
Voters could be forgiven for being unsure, now that Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, agreed to speak at the Republican National Convention in mid July. The union that O’Brien leads undermines conservative policies, throws millions of dollars at left-wing causes, and even supported a group affiliated with Palestinian terrorists.
Inviting O’Brien is clearly intended to win some working-class voters. But even a cursory glance of the Teamsters’ federal filings makes clear that the union actively opposes the Republican Party.
Since 2019, the Teamsters have spent more than $9 million of union dues to support everything from left-wing think tanks to a nonprofit founded by the failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. The Teamsters even gave $20,000 to the “Alliance for Global Justice,” which was cut off by payment processors like PayPal after the media reported that the group was providing material support to Palestinian terrorists.
The fact that 99 percent of the Teamsters’ advocacy spending goes to left-wing causes is concerning enough for the GOP. But if that wasn’t bad enough, the union’s policy positions further prove that Teamsters’ leadership opposes GOP priorities. The union has condemned some of Republicans’ most notable recent victories, from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The Teamsters union also wants to ban right-to-work laws, which allow workers in 26 states to decide for themselves whether to join and pay a union. The union opposes secret-ballot elections for union-organizing by favoring the card-check system that lets union organizers intimidate workers. Moreover, the Teamsters demand that unions be given workers’ personal information, including home addresses and phone numbers.
The Teamsters even want the federal government to impose public-sector unions nationwide, overriding the seven states that have significantly limited or banned them to protect taxpayers. The union wants more tax-and-spend states like New York, Illinois, and California, not pro-freedom and low-tax states like Florida and Texas.
The leadership of Teamsters has maintained far-left values, even as its members have drifted right. In 2016, 43 percent of union households voted for Donald Trump. GOP leaders, including Trump, understandably want to win even more union voters in 2024. Some, like Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), have even turned their back on Republican priorities like right-to-work laws.
But there’s a simpler — and more principled — way to win union voters. Republicans should appeal directly to union members with commonsense policies.
Working-class Americans are among the hardest hit by Bidenomics and its painful inflation. Republicans should reach them with policies that will reduce the cost of living and increase job opportunities. The GOP should simultaneously and forcefully oppose the union-backed demands with a message of spending restraint. Additionally, the GOP should extend the 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2025 — spurring a new era of job creation and wage growth.
The same goes for an energy policy that embraces America’s abundant natural resources, which will cut costs at the gas station, the grocery store, and elsewhere and would further give the working class prospects of good-paying jobs. And the GOP should get even more vocal on worker protections such as secret-ballot union elections and the end of forced membership — policies that union members themselves overwhelmingly support.
The bottom line is that Republicans don’t need to attract radical union leaders. Instead, they need the working-class Americans that union leaders claim to represent but often betray. Sean O’Brien is a case in point, having dedicated the Teamsters to left-wing causes that the workers oppose. Regardless of what he says at the July convention, the GOP should make clear that it rejects the liberal demands of union leaders and stands for the conservative policies that lift up union members.