© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Sean O’Brien, President of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, speaks to UPS Teamsters throughout a picket forward of an upcoming potential strike, outdoors of a UPS Distribution Middle in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., July 14, 2023. REUTERS/Brend
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By Tim Reid and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump is because of meet with considered one of America’s greatest unions on Wednesday as he competes for the help of labor teams forward of a probable normal election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
Trump is because of sit down with the management and a few rank-and-file members of the Teamsters, simply days after the Republican former president reacted angrily to dropping out on the endorsement from one other union, the United Auto Staff.
Trump’s assembly with the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters comes throughout a 2024 presidential marketing campaign through which the financial system is entrance and middle, and unions have seen a resurgence in the USA with many, together with the Teamsters, successful new vital contracts.
Trump and Biden will probably goal union votes typically election battleground states, together with Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump’s grip on the Republican presidential nomination has tightened after back-to-back nominating wins in Iowa and New Hampshire this month.
Trump will meet with bosses and members of the Teamsters at their Washington headquarters because the management of the 1.3 million-member union mulls which presidential candidate it would endorse forward of November’s election.
Two hours earlier than the scheduled assembly, the Trump marketing campaign launched a listing of pledges by Trump, claiming that U.S. employees will profit from his insurance policies. They embrace tariffs on Chinese language imports – a transfer many economists say will harm U.S. employees and customers – and shutting the U.S.-Mexico border, one other pledge that economists warn will adversely have an effect on American producers.
Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida earlier this month, advised Fox Information on Jan. 24 that the union has additionally invited Biden to its headquarters, because it considers who to endorse.
“We predict it is vital to satisfy with all of the candidates. We now have a really various membership,” O’Brien stated. “We owe it to our members to do our due diligence and make the advice that is in the perfect curiosity of the Teamster members nationwide.”
Union endorsements may very well be essential in a presidential race amongst a intently divided citizens the place only a few thousand votes in a number of key states might determine the 2024 election.
Since he first ran for president in 2016, Trump has elevated help amongst blue-collar employees and is once more telling them this 12 months that he – and never Biden – will enhance their lives economically.
Biden calls himself essentially the most pro-union president in historical past, and the Teamsters endorsed him in 2020.
Biden obtained a coveted endorsement final week, from the management of the just about 380,000-strong United Auto Staff (UAW), one other key labor group within the Midwest, an vital election battleground.
Individually, Biden can be in Michigan on Thursday for a go to to a Detroit-area union corridor to satisfy with UAW members, a marketing campaign official advised Reuters Tuesday.
UAW President Shawn Fain stated that Biden had a historical past of serving the working class, whereas Trump “stands towards every thing we stand for,” citing amongst different issues Trump’s look at a non-union corridor throughout final 12 months’s auto employees strike. He known as Trump an anti-union “scab.”
Trump reacted furiously on his Fact Social platform on Sunday, calling Fain a “stiff” and a “dope”, and urging auto employees to vote for him and never Biden in November.