Trump and the Teamsters
The agenda of labor bosses isn’t the same as pro-worker policy.
Donald Trump’s decision to give a featured speaking spot to a union president at the GOP convention is supposed to signal the new pro-worker GOP. Mr. Trump hopes Big Labor can help expand his appeal among working-class voters. It’s understandable symbolic politics, but the policies that unions want in return would help labor chiefs more than individual workers.
The risky part of Mr. Trump’s bet became clear when Mr. O’Brien started talking specifics. The union boss encouraged Republicans to renounce right to work, a bulwark of U.S. labor policy that is the law in 27 states. Right to work lets workers decide whether to join a union, and it isn’t pro-worker to force them to pay dues on Mr. O’Brien’s orders. Mr. O’Brien also called for Republicans to endorse planks in the Pro Act, such as restricting employers to make it easier for unions to organize new workforces. Nearly all Republicans opposed the Pro Act in 2021 to shield their constituents from union coercion. Mr. O’Brien wants to coax them to drop their opposition in a second Trump term. Mr. O’Brien and his union peers claim to speak for the American workforce at large, but they represent a small and shrinking share of it. The Teamsters boast 300,000 fewer members today than in 1958, despite merging with several other unions in recent decades.
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