Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, made a burst at the Republican National Convention on Monday evening.
O’Brien did not support former president Donald Trump during the convention’s opening speech, but he thanked him for the chance to talk and forewarned that he is breaking with his union’s new trend of supporting Democrats in his closing speech.
” Today, the Teamsters are here to declare that we are not answerable to anyone or any gathering”, O’Brien said. We will develop a plan and work with a republican partnership that is ready to bring about something for the American worker.
O’Brien after lashed out at organizational security, nationless leaders, and “economic terrorism”, remarks that drew a very less passionate response. However, O’Brien, the head of a 1.3 million part coalition that supported both Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, was speaking at the RNC without even knowing it, which was perhaps more significant than anything he said.
He claimed to be the first Teamsters leader to address a Republican National Convention in the government’s 121-year story.
Labor unions have conventionally provided Democratic candidates with campaign testimonials and millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Biden frequently refers to himself as the most pro-union president in history after starting his final battle at a coalition hall in Pittsburgh. O’Brien proudly points out that The Teamsters are one of the only non-law police unions that has n’t supported Donald Trump.
” The Teamsters are certainly interested in whether you have an’ R’ or a’ D ‘ beside your name”, O’Brien said. What are you doing to assist American staff, we want to hear.
O’Brien has even requested a speaking position at the Democratic National Convention in November, and Reuters reported earlier on Monday that the Teamsters were unlikely to support either member. However, the outlet described the media as a “blow to Biden”.
The Teamsters, whose federation members include drivers and UPS individuals, have a mostly female, non-college account that leans more Democratic than organizations representing teachers or support staff. The party endorsed Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush in days gone by but has backed the Democrat in each of the last two votes.
At Georgia State University, Dan Bowling, the professor of labor law, predicted that the majority of Teamsters members would support Trump. He said he was n’t surprised to see O’Brien speak.
” Trump does include a pro-working category information much more so than Biden”, he said. ” I talk to working-class individuals a bit, I talk to work individuals a lot. They are nearly universally pro-Trump”.
Bowling expressed surprise at times when he sounded “like Jimmy Hoffa on a field outside a inventory there” in response to some of O’Brien’s more conventional union talking items.
However, his reputation represents an option for Republicans. Both Trump and Biden are passionately focused on winning the Rust Belt state of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and any change in blue collar citizens in those states may choose the election.
Back of O’Brien’s speech, Biden plan director Julie Chavez Rodriguez issued a statement slamming Trump’s union history.
” More than 30 of the world’s largest unions have Joe Biden’s up because they know Joe Biden may generally struggle for working people”, she said. Joe Biden is aware that organisations helped to create this nation and the thick school. He is the most pro-union and pro-worker president always, defending more than 1 million pensions, creating almost 16 million jobs, fighting for workers over great selfish corporations, and is the first president to add workers on the picket line”.
Trump, of course, makes a different argument, citing in particular the Biden administration’s push for heavy electric vehicles as a symptom of his outward-thinking policies that will result in less unionized jobs and build products that the working class ca n’t afford.
Self-described lifelong Democrat Bobby Bartels mentioned Trump visiting a union work site before his days in politics earlier in the evening, saying” this union democrat will be voting Trump.” While he was speaking, cameramen cut to attendees inside the Fiserv Forum while wearing hard hats.
Trump’s selection of Sen. J. D. Vance (R-OH), whose working-class background became the subject of a best-selling memoir and a Netflix film, can also be seen as a nod to the Rust Belt thanks to his blue collar bonafides and populist persona.
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Cameras cut to Vance at several points during O’Brien’s speech, with the Ohio senator clapping and smiling at his remarks.
O’Brien claimed that there was political unrest on both the left and right when President Trump invited me to speak at the convention. ” Union groups demanded the president rescind his invitation, and the left called me a traitor.  , This is precisely why it’s so important for me to be here today”.
