DETROIT– Teamsters members will receive the Vice President Kamala Harris for a roundtable discussion in the near future, but union president Sean O’Brien has not yet received an invitation to speak at next week’s Democratic National Convention.
Kara Deniz, spokeswoman for the 1.3 million-member union, said in an email Friday that the Teamsters are working with Harris’ campaign to set dates for the roundtable.
But O’Brien, who angered some Democrats by speaking at the GOP convention last monthhas not yet received a response to his request to speak at the Democratic National Convention, which begins Monday in Chicago, Deniz said Friday night.
O’Brien made the request to Democrats at the same time he asked Republicans, she said.
A person familiar with the convention’s schedule said Saturday that O’Brien will not speak, but that the Teamsters will be on stage at the convention. The person requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the schedule.
Democrats have been the party of labor unions for decades, while Republicans have largely greeted them with hostility. Most major labor unions, including the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workershave already endorsed Harris.
But the Teamsters met their GOP opponent, Donald Trump, in January, and O’Brien got a lukewarm reception when he spoke on the opening night of the Republican convention in Milwaukee. In his speech, O’Brien criticized both major political parties for not doing enough to help working people.
The Teamsters say the decision on the president’s approval will be made after the conventions.
Earlier this year, Trump spoke to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in an attempt to gain union support. Coming out of that rally, Trump boasted that a significant portion of union voters supported him and said of a possible Teamsters endorsement, “Stranger things have happened.”
But in a conversation Monday on the social media platform X with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Trump praised Musk for firing workers who had gone on strike. Musk laughed and agreed. While it was unclear what Trump was referring to, the comments earned him rebukes from unions who accused Trump and Musk of being anti-union.
The United Auto Workers even filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that comments by Trump and Musk hindered workers who wanted to unionize. The NLRB said it would investigate.
“Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they’re openly laughing about it,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement.
Trump’s campaign called the allegations frivolous and a “shameless political stunt.”