by Robert Schmad
A new report shows that a huge union that suddenly partnered with Republicans – including former President Donald Trump – ahead of the November election spent millions supporting the left.
Of the more than $9 million the International Brotherhood of Teamsters spent on political advocacy between 2019 and 2022, 99 percent went to groups affiliated with the Democratic Party, liberal economic think tanks and anti-Trump media operations. According to to a new report from the Center for Trade Union Facts provided exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Despite the union’s mighty leftward tilt, the Teamsters did given to the Republican National Committee (RNC), filed a petition to appear at the party congress in July, and even met with Trump as part of a broader effort to curry favor with conservatives.
Teamsters, boasting 1.3 million members, present truck drivers, government workers, pilots, construction workers, warehouse workers and people working in the public sector, as well as workers in several other sectors.
One of the largest portions of Teamster’s advocacy spending, about $2.5 million, went to “registered Democrats, Democratic Party-funded initiatives, Democratic campaigns and organizations focused on advancing Democratic Party interests,” according to the report. The recipients of EU funds included: National Democratic Cluba Washington social organization where liberal elites meet with the hobnob, voting rights group of Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who lost, Fair Fight Actionand inaugural committee Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
The more than $2.6 million in political donations made by the Teamsters PAC this election cycle also shifted sharply to the left, with the enormous majority of their funds going to Democrats and Democrat-aligned PACs such as Senate Majority PAC, Democratic National Committee , Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Democratic Governors Association, According to to the files of the Federal Election Commission.
The drivers, however, made waves when they did so given In January, $45,000 to the RNC, equal to the union quota First contribution to the work of the committee since 2004
Teamsters president Shaun O’Brien defended the donation, arguing it would give his union a “seat at the table”, Reuters reported.
O’Brien has since requested the opportunity to speak at the Democratic and Republican national conventions, According to to the New York Times. He also met privately with Trump and Mar-a-Lago, and sources close to the former president suggest there may be a promising relationship between the two.
“Conservatives should be extremely skeptical of outreach to organized labor,” Capital Research Center research director Michael Watson told DCNF. “Big philanthropy and the progressive movement see an opportunity to try to break the conservative consensus [that is] skeptical of organized labor, certainly hostile to forced unionization to strengthen the allies of progressivism in organized labor.”
While other major labor unions such as the AFL-CIO and the United Automobile Workers have endorsed President Joe Biden for re-election, the Teamsters have so far declined to endorse any of the major candidates, planning instead to make a decision sometime in the summer, Reuters reports.
The Center for Union Facts report found that the Teamsters, however, have made contributions to nonprofits that are rabidly anti-Trump, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The ACLU, for its part, does prepared strategies to oppose Trump’s agenda on immigration and LGBT issues if he is elected president in November, building on a legacy of hostile litigation during Trump’s first term, according to its website. Meanwhile, the NAACP did called demanded that the former president be removed from the ballot following his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, and called his nomination “an egregious advance in white supremacist politics.”
Media operations against Trump, e.g Rick Smith Show AND American perspectiveAccording to the report, they also pocketed cash from the Teamsters. Left-leaning economic think tanks like the Roosevelt Institute and the Economic Policy Institute have also been beneficiaries of Teamster’s advocacy spending.
To compile its report, the Union Facts Center analyzed reports filed by all national and local Teamster chapters at the Department of Labor and documented the various political advocacy groups to which the union disclosed donations.
Drivers did not respond to DCNF’s request for comment.
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Robert Schmad is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Sean O’Brien” by Drivers.
