Why the Teamsters broke the union mold and didn’t endorse Harris
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WASHINGTON – The International Brotherhood of Teamsters sent shockwaves on Wednesday through the 2024 election when it decided not to endorse either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.
Unions have historically been allies of Democratic politicians. And the Teamsters have for the past two decades supported every major Democratic presidential candidate.
This year, their decision broke with much of the rest of the labor movement. Most other major unions – from the United Auto Workers, to the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor groups in the U.S. – have endorsed Harris. Internal polling from the Teamsters’ members shows that the members weren’t quick to back Harris despite a majority backing Biden, leading some experts question whether race and gender have played a role in the decision.
So, what makes the Teamsters different from their brother and sister organizations?
Their members
The Teamsters 1.3 million members come from all walks of life – they’re truck drivers, freight workers, airline pilots, zookeepers and public defenders. They represent a cross-section of American workers, just like other unions.
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The United Steelworkers, who quickly endorsed Harris after Biden dropped out of the election, has 1.2 million members and retirees in a wide array of industries – from health care and higher education to mining and metal. A number of members are also from manufacturing and heavy industrial sectors such as paper and forestry, rubber and tire, oil and petroleum, glass and chemicals.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which also endorsed Harris, represents workers in electrical construction, transmission, utilities, manufacturing, broadcast, telecommunications, railroad and government. It also endorsed Harris.
But the Teamsters appear to be more divided than those organizations.
Their poll showed that a majority of members, roughly 60%, supported Trump, while some 34% supported Harris.
Prior to the national organizations announcement on Wednesday, 10 local Teamsters unions had backed Harris, including one in Philadelphia – a city which Harris views as vital to her path to the presidency.
Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42, which includes 300,000 members in California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam, endorsed Harris shortly after the national union’s announcement on Wednesday. Other local chapters in major swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also endorsed Harris.
Compare that to the AFL-CIO, whose 60 partner unions unanimously voted in July to support Harris for president. Much like the Teamsters, those unions represent a large swath of industries. The largest share of its members come from public-service organizations including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, but it also represents firefighters, electricians and construction workers.
Paul Clark, professor of labor and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University, said the Teamsters’ leaders had to be careful with the position they took because of how much support there was for Trump. Although the Teamsters’ has supported mostly Democrats in recent years, Clark noted that union members are not a monolith in who they vote for and what party they support.
“That’s really the reason for this non endorsement,” Clark said. He added that Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, is also walking a “tight line” to maintain support from members when it comes down to his own reelection.
Political history
While the Teamsters have endorsed most Democratic presidential candidates since 2000, they’re allegiance with the Democratic Party tends to be less strong than other major unions.
In the late 20th Century, they often backed Republican contenders, including former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And this year isn’t the first time they’ve declined to endorse a candidate. They bowed out of the 1996 election between former President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and the 1976 campaign between former President’s Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, too.
Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research and a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, suggested that the union’s shifts represent its political pragmatism. They’ll support the candidate they believe will advance their priorities, rather than be beholden to tradition.
“Whatever is good for the union matters more than the politics,” Bronfenbrenner said.
In a sign of those political shifts, O’Brien earlier this year became the first president of the Teamsters in the organization’s 121-year history to speak at the Republican National Convention.
O’Brien told the crowd that the Teamsters were “not beholden to anyone or any party,” and only cared about one question: “What are you doing to help American workers?”
More workers in the Teamsters believe Trump is doing more to help them. And Clark, the Pennsylvania State University professor, believes O’Brien’s aim at the RNC and with the endorsement decision was to “send a message to those of his members that support Donald Trump, that he hears them.”
Educating members
The Teamsters’ bottom-up approach to the 2024 election also differs from that of other unions, according to experts USA TODAY spoke with.
O’Brien earlier this week noted that the “voices and opinions” of the union’s members were helping guide its decision-making about an endorsement.
And the message from those members has shifted substantially since the start of the race.
Prior to Biden dropping out of the 2024 race, 44.3% of Teamsters members supported the president, according to straw poll results released by the Teamsters. Trump was at 36.3% in the straw poll.
Those results flipped, and turned even more in favor of Trump, once Harris was at the top of the ticket. Results from an electronic member poll showed that Trump has the backing of 59.6% of Teamsters members, compared to Harris’ 34%. In a research phone call from Teamsters, the numbers were similar, with 31% saying they support Harris and 58% said they support Trump.
Bronfenbrenner argued that the key difference in support for Biden and Harris was about “gender and race.”
Given the Teamsters history representing truck drivers and warehouse workers, Clark said it does have a reputation of having a higher percentage of male members and being perceived as a “macho union.” Other groups, like the Service Employees International Union, which is more than half women and more than 40% non-white – have demographics that lean Democratic.
That could be one reason why there was less support for Harris among Teamsters.
But more likely, Clark said members probably just don’t know Harris as much as they did Biden.
“She doesn’t have quite the union credentials, the long record of support for unions that Biden has,” Clark said, adding that she’s made it clear in all her statements that she’s taking the same approach on unions as Biden did.
Where other unions have sought to educate their members about the policy platforms of Harris and Trump, the Teamsters have let their members lead the way.
AFL-CIO spokesperson Mia Jacobs, for instance, said that the organization has also polled its members and found that a majority are firmly behind Harris. But they’ve also embarked on a program to inform union voters in swing areas about Harris and Trump’s policies.
“We’re finding that the more communication they get from their union, the more movement we see to Harris and Walz,” Jacobs said in a statement.
Experts aren’t expecting the lack of endorsement from the Teamsters to have a major influence on the election
“What would change the election is if they were out there really educating their members, one way or the other,” Bronfenbrenner argued. “But I think they’re kind of saying, this is where our members are. We’re not going to take the lead.”
Clark said the endorsements from the smaller Teamster chapters are likely to have more of an impact. That is because much of the organizing, like door-knocking and phone-banking, from union endorsements are carried out at the local level.
“I think that’s going to make a difference,” Clark said of the local Teamsters groups endorsing Harris in key battleground states, adding that they’re “really being the key.”
Contributing: Joey Garrison, USA TODAY
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