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TEAMSTERS UNION PRESIDENT CALLS TRUMP ‘TOUGH SOB’ IN
UNPRECEDENTED SPEECH AT REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
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Alice Herman
July 15, 2024
The Guardian
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_ Sean O’Brien thanks ex-president for ‘opening RNC’s doors’,
breaking with most major unions who have backed Biden _
Sean O'Brien speaks during the first day of the RNC at the Fiserv
Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday., Andrew
Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
In an unprecedented address, Sean O’Brien, the president of the
powerful Teamsters union, delivered remarks at the Republican national
convention on Monday night.
In addressing the convention, O’Brien broke with most major unions
in the US, which have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind Joe
Biden.
During his speech, O’Brien thanked Donald Trump
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RNC’s doors” to the union – whose leaders have never spoken at
the Republican national convention – and shot back at criticism over
his willingness to appear at the former president’s invitation.
“I travel all across this country and meet with my members every
week,” said O’Brien. “I see American workers being taken for
granted, workers being sold out to big banks, big tech corporations,
the elite.”
Backlash from “the left”, O’Brien said, “is why it’s so
important for me to be here today”. That comment, followed by his
resounding exclamation that Trump proved himself to be “one tough
SOB” after the assassination attempt on Saturday drew a standing
ovation from the crowd.
For the rest of his speech, O’Brien railed against corporate greed,
demanded “long-term investment in the American worker” and
implored lawmakers to seek bipartisanship in Congress.
“Most legislation is never meant to go anywhere,” said O’Brien.
“It’s all talk – and in America, talk isn’t cheap. It’s very
expensive. It comes at the cost of our own country.”
During his remarks, the crowd often seemed puzzled and sat in a
silence punctuated occasionally by applause when O’Brien spoke in
more general terms about America’s “elites”.
O’Brien’s decision to appear at the Republican convention came
just hours after Trump announced that he had chosen the rightwing
populist Ohio senator JD Vance to run alongside him on the Republican
ticket. Vance, who has invoked his family’s midwestern and
Appalachian roots in a nod to working-class voters, has embraced
populist rhetoric while touting a less-than-friendly labor record.
Vance opposed the Pro Act, which organized labor rallied around, and
introduced
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legislation that would legalize company unions, corporate labor
formations outlawed
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by the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.
O’Brien’s remarks bookended an evening of speeches focused largely
on the economy – a core issue for the Trump campaign and one that
O’Brien could address with special authority given his role as a
union leader. His was the second speech from a union official that
evening – in brief remarks, Bobby Bartels, the business manager of a
Steamfitters local in New York, endorsed Trump to cheers from the
crowd of Republican delegates and conservative activists.
Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union (UAW),
slammed Trump in a speech shortly after he announced his third run for
the presidency, calling him a “scab” and saying: “If Donald
Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member –
he’d be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker.”
After Trump announced Vance as his running mate, Sara Nelson, the
president of the union representing flight attendants, wrote on
Twitter/X that “behind all his slick rhetoric, JD Vance is just
another shill for the corporate class who will sell out workers to
corporate America. This ticket isn’t pro-worker or pro-union. It’s
the billionaire ticket through and through.”
Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation
in the US, called the Trump-Vance ticket “a corporate CEO’s dream
and a worker’s nightmare” and vowed that the federation would
“continue educating union voters every single day” on topics like
Project 2025, the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s playbook for a
Republican presidency.
When O’Brien met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and
when the union later donated $45,000 to the Republican National
Committee, it sparked outrage from progressive members.
Richard Hooker Jr, the secretary treasurer of Teamsters local 623 and
vice-president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO board, has on multiple
occasions spoken out against the union’s increasingly friendly
relations with the Republican party.
“Republicans have been, for the most part anti-union, anti-labor and
anti-working class,” said Hooker. “Labor has to be together. We
have to take a position like the AFL-CIO – Shawn Fain said ‘Donald
Trump is a scab’ and that’s the same language that all of us
should use.”
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* Sean O'Brien; Teamsters and Trump; Republican Convention;
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