Teamsters president Sean O’Brien made history Monday night, becoming the first head of the nation’s largest labor union to speak at the Republican National Convention, offering to build bipartisan bridges to better help working people across the United States.

"The American people aren't stupid, they know the system is broken. We all know how Washington is run — working people have no chance of winning this fight. That's why I'm here today. Because I refuse to keep doing the same things my predecessors did," said O’Brien, who was elected to lead the Teamsters in 2022 on a wave of rank-and-file member support. "Today, the Teamsters are here to say we are not beholden to anyone or any party."

The GOP has not traditonally been known as a center for worker power, and Trump has been considered even less worker-friendly, making O’Brien’s presence at the party’s grand affair something of a stunner among the labor movement. 

Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump, O’Brien said, "is not afraid of hearing from new, loud and often crtical voices," and "in light of what happened to him Saturday, he is proven to be one tough S.O.B."

O’Brien has not shied away from reaching out to Trump, famously taking a photo with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Even leadership within his union has stood against his decision to speak at the convention.

"It is unconscionable for any Labor leader to lend an air of legitimacy to a candidate and a political party, neither of which can be said to have done, or can be expected to do, anything to improve the lives of the workers we are pledged to represent," wrote John Palmer, a Teamsters Vice Preisdent At-Large from Local 657 in San Antonio, Texas.

The Teamsters, Palmer noted, conducted a poll of which the majority of members chose not to support Donald Trump. O’Brien, he said, should not have created "the false impression that Teamsters members support Trump and all he stands for."

In his speech, O’Brien offered the belief "that no door or window should ever be permanently shut," noting his work in reaching out to senators like Josh Hawley of Missouri, Roger Marshall of Kansas and J.D. Vance of Ohio, now the Republican nominee for vice president.

"We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the business roundtables what they are, they are unions for big business. And here's another fact: Against gigantic multinational corporations, an individual worker has zero power," O’Brien said. "It's only when Americans band together in democratic unions that we win real improvements on wages, benefits and working conditions."

On Tuesday, Hawley wrote an opinion piece lauding O’Brien’s speech. His article, published by the online magazine Compact, begins by alleging that corporations have used profits to "push diversity, equity and inclusion and the religion of the trans flag." 

Hawley’s suggestion, that profits have been used on inititaives he intimates are frivolous, isn’t sourced — but if workers are feeling the pinch of profit spending, corporate investors aren’t.

Gross corporate profits are higher than ever recorded in American history — more than $3.8 trillion as of 2024 Q1 — per the FRED, or Federal Reserve Economic Data, database. Meanwhile, corporations like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell are paying out record dividents and stock buybacks.

"There was a time when Republicans knew that American strength depends squarely on American workers—and their way of life: family, neighborhood, church, union hall. Ronald Reagan knew it. Abraham Lincoln, a one-time rail splitter, understood it in his bones. And Theodore Roosevelt perhaps said it best when he exclaimed, 'I am for business. But I am for manhood first, and business as an adjunct to manhood.' Roosevelt’s sentiment should be conservatives’ mantra," Hawley continued. 

(Reagan, long the standard-bearer for the Republican Party, once led the Screen Actors Guild. But, in his first year as president, he shattered an air traffic controllers strike, firing all 13,000 striking workers and dramatically chilling worker strikes and giving employers cover to break strikes by firing workers en masse. Other observers found his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board to have had a greater impact on labor law.)

In a social media post, O’Brien linked to Hawley’s article, saying that Hawley is "100% on point."

But according to the AFL-CIO, the national trade union center, Hawley has an abysmal voting record on behalf of working people. The AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard analysis accuses Hawley of "voting against working people" in nearly 90% of key issues it has identified throughout his Senate career.

The AFL-CIO offered a conspicuously timed social media post on Tuesday, seemingly referring to O’Brien’s speech without mentioning the Teamsters president by name.

"Some would love for workers to take Trump at his word & forget what he did as President. But we didn't forget. And Project 2025 shows he'll pick up right where he left off: dissolving unions, gutting worker protections, & defunding whole parts of the government people rely on," the union posted.

Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, told Spectrum News that O’Brien was "right to call out corporate greed," which is an issue that she believes people aren’t focused on, "especially at the RNC, that corporations have tilted labor laws in their favor."

Trump and the GOP, she said, aren’t fooling working people.

"When he first came into office, we gave him a chance he demonstrated that he at every turn, had policies to benefit corporations and tear down workers. And now with this Project 2025 agenda, workers are becoming more educated and empowered. And they're going to turn out to the polls to support President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris because they know they're standing up for workers."

On Monday, Reuters reported that the Teamsters may not offer an endorsement in the 2024 race. Historically, the union has thrown its lot in behind Democrats — including Biden in 2020, Hilary Clinton in 2016, and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — but it has supported Republicans throughout its history as well. Endorsements to GOP candidates have included Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Meanwhile, other major labor organizations have offered to support Biden, including the AFL-CIO, the construction worker-focused Laborers’ International Union of North America and the United Auto Workers.

The UAW, led by firebrand president Shawn Fain, was quick to support Biden, who became the first American president to walk with workers on a picket line last year during the historic auto workers strike. (One day after Biden, Trump held a similar rally at a non-union plant.)

At an event last week, Fain made his stance clear, saying that a second Trump presidency "would be a complete disaster for the working class."

"We've got a president in the White House who wants to stand with the working class and we've made incredible gains over the past 3-1/2 years with this president," Fain said.

Even O'Brien extolled Biden's labor bonafies, saying on CNN on Tuesday: "He is definitely the most pro-labor president we've ever had, we've ever seen ... he did fix pensions nationwide, not just the Teamsters ... he has done a lot of work on behalf of the Teamsters union, and we're proud of the work that he did."

He added that his speech Tuesday night was meant to channel the feelings of some of his members. He also has previously said he would happily speak at next month's Democratic National Convention in Chicago if invited.

O’Brien isn’t the only speaker from organized labor who will be on stage at the RNC this week. Robert Bartels, Jr., Business Manager of New York’s Steamfitters Local 638A, was named as a speaker who "has become a powerful voice representing union workers who are now supporting President Trump."