Teamsters boss attacks big business in historic convention speech

MILWAUKEE — Teamsters President Sean O’Brien closed out the first night of the Republican National Convention with a pro-worker and anti-corporation message not common at major GOP gatherings.

“I travel all across this country to meet with my members every week,” Mr. O’Brien said. “You know what I see? An American worker being taken for granted. Workers being sold out to big banks, big tech, corporations and the elites.”

His speech was the first speech by a Teamsters president at an RNC ever, because unions have traditionally been a Democratic voting bloc.

But Mr. O’Brien said he decided to speak at the convention at the personal invitation of presidential nominee Donald Trump because he refuses “to keep doing the same things my predecessors did.”

“Today the Teamsters are here to say we are not beholden to anyone or any party,” he said. “We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker.”

He criticized big corporations, those who are against unions, and the Washington establishment for not looking out for workers.

The decision to have Mr. O’Brien not only speak but close out a long day was part of Monday’s theme of “Make America Wealthy Once Again,” with a focus on how Mr. Trump has a vision to strengthen the country’s economy.

Mr. O’Brien thanked him for the invitation in his speech and said he is the candidate “who is not afraid of hearing from new, loud and often critical voices.”

Mr. Trump had met with the Teamsters in late January, in a meeting that he labeled “very productive,” and Mr. O’Brien said went well.

The former president announced the invitation on his Truth Social account in June as he searched for an endorsement by the union, with which he had dealt frequently in his decades as a real-estate mogul in New York.

Mr. O’Brien did not, however, offer up an endorsement for Mr. Trump in Monday’s speech.

But he noted that his speaking to the RNC had been denounced by both right-to-work groups on the right and Democratic-leading union leaders, whom he said have been calling him a “traitor.”

“The Teamsters are doing something correct if the extremes of both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage,” he said.

The Center for Union Facts, an anti-union group, has a billboard in Milwaukee calling Mr. O’Brien “two-faced.”

John Palmer, vice president at-large at Teamsters, called on Mr. O’Brien to cancel his visit to the RNC in an opinion piece published last week in New Politics.

“A speaking engagement at the Republican National Convention by Teamster President Sean O’Brien, regardless of the message, only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and President I’ve seen in my lifetime seem palatable,” he said.

Delegates at the convention said Mr. O’Brien’s appearance shows that union voters are up for grabs and that Mr. Trump can successfully appeal to them.

“It just demonstrates that they’re not happy with the Democrat Party and they’re looking at Donald Trump. They’re looking at the Republican side,” said David Lara, a delegate from Arizona. “And that right there says it all, that the Democrats have failed the Teamsters and the unions, and the working middle class.”

West Virginia state Sen. Jack Woodrum, also an RNC delegate, said he thinks the speech from Mr. O’Brien will “send a lot of shockwaves through both parties.”

“I think it was a smart move and it’s about time we’ve had this conversation because the world has changed a lot,” he said.