Right-to-work laws “only exist to try to kill labor unions,” said Fred Zuckerman, the general secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Union, which announced Wednesday that it wouldn’t be endorsing a presidential campaign in the 2024 race, despite the obvious.
The obvious being: ex-president Donald Trump told the Teamsters straight up in his sit-down interview with the union’s leaders that he couldn’t commit to vetoing national right-to-work legislation if he is elected to a second term.
Right-to-work laws are “a red line for the Teamsters and must be for any union when a candidate for elected office does not oppose such anti-worker legislation. It’s too important an issue for the labor movement as a whole to be left up to state legislatures,” Zuckerman said.
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Despite the existential threat that a second Trump term poses to the future of labor unions in the U.S., rank-and-file Teamsters voted 59.6 percent for the union to endorse Trump, compared to 34 percent casting their lots with Kamala Harris.
Harris’s sin: all she did was pledge to sign the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, legislation introduced by Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott that would allow unions to hold elections through mail ballots or electronic ballots, would allow workers to sue employers, and would weaken existing state right-to-work laws on the books in 27 states, including Virginia.
The press release from the Teamsters announcing their Switzerland stance on the presidential election called the Protecting the Right to Organize Act “an essential piece of labor legislation strengthening union protections.”
You can see why they’d be conflicted here.
Trump, for his part, has pledged veto the PRO Act, and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Congressman Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., that would guarantee the right of public sector employees to organize, act concertedly, and bargain collectively in states that currently do not afford these basic protections.
I’d say good luck to the Teamsters getting anything near what they want from a second Trump term, but we all see the way this election is going to go.
The bigger issue for the Teamsters, come next year, is not having a seat at the table, because just under 60 percent of their members wanted the union to endorse a scab.
“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries, and to honor our members’ right to strike, but were unable to secure those pledges.”
But hey, O’Brien got to speak at the Republican National Convention.
He’ll always have that going for him.
Video: Teamsters sitting this one out
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Chris Graham
