A nonprofit union watchdog has purchased billboards around the site of this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC), criticizing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for its liberal advocacy spending, the Daily Caller News Foundation first learned.
The Center for Union Facts (CUF) has placed three billboards along major roads leading to the RNC in Milwaukee labeling the Teamsters as “two-faced,” pointing out that 99% of the organization’s political advocacy spending between 2019 and 2022 went to liberal organizations. Of the over $9 million in advocacy spending doled out by the Teamsters over those four years, virtually all of it went to groups linked to the Democratic Party, anti-Trump media operations, left-of-center nonprofits and economic think tanks aligned with the left.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien is slated to speak at the convention as he seeks to build a closer relationship between the union and Republicans. Former President Donald Trump invited O’Brien to speak at the convention in June after the union leader requested a speaking slot earlier in the month.
“O’Brien and the Teamsters want to fool the public into thinking they are a bipartisan organization,” CUF communications director Charlyce Bozzello told the DCNF. “In reality, 99% of their advocacy dollars go to left-wing causes. Workers deserve to know the truth: the Teamsters aren’t bipartisan. They have made it clear they only care about one side.”
The vast majority of the $2.6 million in political donations made by the Teamsters’ PAC this election cycle have gone to Democrats and Democratic-aligned committees, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
The Teamsters received considerable attention when it donated $45,000 to the RNC in January, the union’s first contribution to the organization since 2004, per FEC records. O’Brien said the union gave Republicans money to get the Teamsters “a seat at the table,” according to Reuters.
“The far right is terrified at the prospect of losing their monopoly on the Republican Party,” Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Deniz told the DCNF. “If the Republican Party continues to move to represent working people, expect to see more billboards like this as front groups funded by big money corporatists become increasingly hysterical.”
The graphic that will appear on billboards outside the RNC (Center for Union Facts)
Trump and O’Brien met privately in early January to discuss labor issues. Later that month, Trump attended a roundtable discussion with rank-and-file members of the union.
In addition to directly funding Democrats, the Teamsters have also made considerable donations to nonprofits like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), two organizations that have been critical of Trump. The ACLU has developed legal strategies to resist a potential second Trump administration, whereas the NAACP has demanded that the former president be removed from the ballot over his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York.
“Conservatives should be extremely skeptical of outreach from organized labor,” Capital Research Center research director Michael Watson previously told the DCNF. “Big philanthropy and the progressive movement sees an opportunity to try to break the conservative consensus [that is] skeptical of organized labor, certainly hostile to compulsory unionization, to strengthen progressivism’s allies in organized labor.”
The union endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president during the 2016 election and then-former Vice President Joe Biden during the 2020 election, though it has yet to throw its support behind a candidate for 2024, according to the AP.
The Teamsters did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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