James P. Hoffa, the longtime former leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, on Thursday called the union\u2019s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race a \u201ccritical error,\u201d adding that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was the \u201ccorrect choice for labor and working families.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Hoffa \u2014 who served as the Teamsters\u2019 general president for 23 years before retiring in 2022, and is the son of mid-century labor legend Jimmy Hoffa \u2014 said this election was \u201ctoo important for our union to not do its duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is only one candidate in this race that has supported working families and unions throughout their career,\u201d he added, \u201cand that is Vice President Kamala Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n
The union announced Wednesday that it would not endorse either presidential candidate. \u201cUnfortunately, 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,\u201d current Teamsters head Sean O\u2019Brien said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hoffa also characterized the non-endorsement as \u201ca failure of leadership\u201d by O\u2019Brien, his successor. The two have had a fractious relationship since before the 2024 election campaign, The Washington Post has reported.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien addressed the Republican National Convention in July, a striking departure for the powerful union that has long supported Democrats. He did not publicly endorse Donald Trump, but his presence alone \u2014 among GOP lawmakers and a former president who have pushed anti-worker policies \u2014 sent shock waves through labor and Democratic circles.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien had requested to speak at the Democratic convention but did not receive an invitation, according to the union, though several other major labor leaders \u2014 and a retired Teamster member who leads a committee that advocated for a 2021 bailout of failing pension plans \u2014 did address the convention.<\/p>\n
During Hoffa\u2019s tenure, from 1999 to 2022, the union supported the Democratic candidate in every presidential election. In 1996, it did not endorse a candidate, and in decades past has supported Republican candidates including Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.<\/p>\n
The Teamsters have nearly 1.3 million members, according to union numbers. Of its board members, 14 voted to endorse neither candidate this year, while three voted to endorse Harris and none voted for Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery major union has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket,\u2019 Hoffa said in his statement. \u201cBut instead of standing in solidarity with all of labor and helping Harris-Walz get over the finish line, the IBT has chosen to take a seat on the sidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
James P. Hoffa, the longtime former leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, on Thursday called the union\u2019s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race a \u201ccritical error,\u201d adding that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was the \u201ccorrect choice for labor and working families.\u201d In a statement, Hoffa \u2014 who served as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}