It is hard to think of a time in recent memory when a leader of a major labor union has offered such a critical view of the Democratic Party as Teamsters President Sean O’Brien did this week.
O’Brien, just a few weeks after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced it would not endorse any candidate in the presidential race, appeared on a recent episode of Theo Von’s podcast This Past Weekend, in which he delivered his harshest critique of the Democratic Party to date.
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m a Democrat, but they have f***ed us over for the last 40 years,” he said. “And for once, and not all of them, but for once, we’re standing up as a union, probably the only one right now, saying, ‘What the f*** have you done for us?’”
O’Brien accused the Democratic Party of being taken over by major tech corporations.
“People say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people. They’re bought and paid for by Big Tech,” he said. Later in the podcast, he added, “The Republicans say they want to … represent the working class. They have an opportunity to do it.”
This is the key to understanding the project that O’Brien has been embarking on since he became the first new president of the Teamsters in 23 years two years ago. He is on a mission to depoliticize the Teamsters because he correctly sees that the union’s tight relationship with the Democratic Party over the past three decades has yielded very little for the union.
O’Brien’s job as the leader of the Teamsters is to advocate the priorities of his organization and its members, not act as a political operation of the Democratic Party or any party, for that matter. He has made clear he is willing to work with politicians from either party, provided that they are interested in advancing legislation and policies that his organization wants to see enacted.
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If the goal of an organization’s political engagement is to advocate certain policies, becoming a partisan entity becomes a disadvantage because it automatically closes off the organization’s ability to engage with an entire side of the political aisle that could easily control the government at any given time.
O’Brien’s nonpartisan approach to politics as the head of the Teamsters is far more likely to yield positive results for his organization than the previous model of reflexive partisanship.