Why Sean O’Brien’s RNC Speech Was a Bad Move

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention on Monday. This was a bad move.

Much of the speech would have been fine if he had delivered it somewhere else. O’Brien railed against corporate greed, singling out Amazon and the private equity vultures that killed Yellow Freight. He called for stronger labor laws. Nobody says that stuff at the Republican convention, so some unionists were pleased to hear righteous themes reach a new audience.

But it almost didn’t matter what he said—the far louder message was where he said it. The convention is not a forum where policy is debated. It’s a coronation pageant.

What’s the message to immigrant Teamsters—and the immigrant workers the Teamsters hope to organize—when their union leader shares a stage with speaker after speaker blaming them for low wages and calling for their families to be torn apart?

There’s a reason why the party gave O’Brien a prime speaking slot on day one, and why Trump, who has zero interest in O’Brien’s pro-worker proposals, beamed through the speech.

Having the Teamster president there—talking tough, laying into the corporate elite—is great for Trump’s fake-populist brand. It lends credibility to his “I’m for the little guy” shtick.

It’s bad enough for a union leader to play into the charade that common ground might be found with the anti-union, employer-funded Republican party. It’s even worse when that party is scapegoating our fellow workers.

What’s the message to immigrant Teamsters—and the immigrant workers the Teamsters hope to organize—when their union leader shares a stage with speaker after speaker blaming them for low wages and calling for their families to be torn apart? Last night the party handed out printed signs to convention delegates that read, “Mass Deportation Now!”

The Jury Is In

In an interview with Fox News before his speech, O’Brien described himself as a lifelong Democrat—but said the Teamsters rank and file is split between the parties, he hoped to speak at both conventions, and he was willing to work with anyone on labor’s issues.

The event was smartly stage-managed, though. A parade of speakers just before O’Brien, billed in giant letters as “Everyday Americans,” told touching stories about working three jobs and not being able to afford gifts for the grandkids. Each one blamed President Joe Biden and said a Trump administration would restore prosperity.

O’Brien’s talking points were so similar—workers are getting the short end of the stick, government is dysfunctional—that he seemed to be agreeing with them, even if he didn’t outright blame Biden or endorse Trump.

In case there’s any doubt: Billionaire Trump, who as an employer has fought unions and stiffed workers, and as a TV personality made “You’re fired” his catchphrase, is not for the little guy. There’s no mystery how labor would fare under his administration. This guy was already president, and we saw the results.

He cut back workplace safety inspectors to their lowest numbers in history. His Labor Board rolled back union rights so far that labor lawyer Robert Schwartz had to delete an entire chapter from The Legal Rights of Union Stewards.

He stacked federal agencies and courts with anti-union zealots who made millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay, made it harder for workers to unionize and easier for bosses to steal wages, and lots more. His Supreme Court made the whole public sector “right to work.” He celebrated a massive tax giveaway to the rich, and never offered a word of support to workers on strike. He tried to slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He opposed any increase in the minimum wage.

He waged war on federal employee unions with attacks on their collective bargaining and due process rights, and shut down the government in a stunt that forced them to go without pay for 35 days. He called climate change a hoax and removed references to it from government documents, while workers suffered the effects of fires, hurricanes, and heatwaves.

Corporate tycoons and alums of his first administration have put together an even more draconian plan for a second term. They want to abolish overtime pay, public sector unions, the federal minimum wage, prevailing wage agreements, the Department of Education, and child labor laws.

Divisive Nonsense

O’Brien singled out Senator JD Vance, the party’s vice presidential nominee, as someone Teamsters can work with, saying, “He’s been right there on all our issues,” though the AFL-CIO says Vance has voted with working people 0% of the time. This year Vance co-sponsored with Senator Marco Rubio a bill to legalize company unions.

O’Brien praised Missouri Senator Josh Hawley too, even though he voted against the Butch Lewis Act that saved 400,000 Teamsters’ pensions, and his AFL-CIO scorecard is barely better than Vance’s at 11%. Hawley put out an op-ed the next morning touting the new “Pro-Labor Conservatism.”

“The C-suite long ago sold out the United States, shuttering factories in the homeland and gutting American jobs,” Hawley wrote, “while using the profits to push diversity, equity, and inclusion and the religion of the trans flag.”'

Hating on workers in other countries makes impossible the only effective strategy against multinational employers: solidarity across borders.

This is divisive nonsense. What CEOs do with their profits is buy mega-yachts and ridiculous watches; transgender workers are not to blame for runaway plants. The problem with corporate DEI is that it’s often hollow, but equality is actually a union value, something we fight for—and bosses usually resist, because things like equal pay for equal work cost money. Yet O’Brien retweeted the op-ed with the comment, “@HawleyMO is 100% on point.”

The most ominous theme in O’Brien’s speech was nationalism. He hammered on the phrase “American workers” and said Amazon’s worst crime is a lack of allegiance to the United States—aligning nicely with right-wing “America First” talking points. Yet his audience was the same party that opposes warehouse safety bills, opposes bills to make it easier to organize a union, and opposes the joint-employer rules that would hold Amazon accountable.

Hating on workers in other countries makes impossible the only effective strategy against multinational employers: solidarity across borders. Are unions going to ally ourselves with right-wing politicians—who, when it comes to foreign policy, back anti-union governments across the world—or are we going to ally with workers in other countries to take on companies like Amazon?

Hawley’s op-ed bashes China and backs “America First” energy policies he claims would help auto workers by repealing electric-vehicle mandates. But the United Auto Workers are taking a different road. The union is not opposing the transition; it’s organizing EV workers. And rather than take an America First line, the UAW has been building an alliance with the growing independent union movement in Mexican auto factories—recognizing that solidarity is in the interests of workers on both sides of the border.

The best way to fight the race to the bottom is to help build a strong independent labor movement in Mexico, China, and everywhere else. The real Republican agenda is to turn working people against each other while our employers laugh all the way to the bank.

Real Problems, Wrong Solution

O’Brien presents his “we can work with either party” approach as powerful and pragmatic, a departure from labor’s longstanding alliance with the Democrats. It looks like he’s trying to solve two problems.

One is to stop the Democratic Party from taking us for granted, so they’ll fight harder for labor’s priorities. Good, but we can only do that by challenging them with real labor candidates, whether in primaries or via the third-party route. Cozying up to Republicans is self-defeating.

The other problem is tough, and not unique to the Teamsters: What to do about Trump’s appeal in our own rank and file? The union deserves credit for initiating a more participatory presidential endorsement process than ever before. Its 300 locals held town hall meetings where members hashed out the issues. The union hasn’t released the results of its straw polls yet, but conversations like those are a good start.

Union leaders, though, should lead. They owe it to their own members—and to every member of the working class who would be harmed by a second Trump administration—to fight to keep anti-worker politicians out of office.

We get why union leaders want “access”; they’ve been shut out of real influence for so long. But it’s delusional to think that Trump might swap out his anti-worker—really, anti-humanity—policies; they are at the core of his being. One more person kissing his ring won’t change that.