The decision comes just two days after the union's leaders met with Vice President Kamala Harris and months after they met with former President Donald Trump.
“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,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement.
He added, “We sought commitments from both [former president Donald] Trump and [Vice President Kamala] Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries—and to honor our members’ right to strike—but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The union, which at 1.3 million members is one of the largest in the world, collected input on an endorsement from its members through straw polling and a QR poll from a code printed on a union magazine, a vice president at large of the union, John Palmer, said.
The Teamsters have for decades endorsed Democratic presidential candidates. The union supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. They also backed Barack Obama in both of his presidential runs, John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.
Finally a major union shows some backbone to the party that’s taken them for granted for a generation.