It was a very lefty kind of speech. He talked about “corporate vultures” ruining the US and demanding change.
UPDATE: Text of speech in block of this realclearpolitics article, but the video (below) is better.
PBS piece with video: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-teamsters-president-sean-obrien-speaks-at-republican-national-convention
From the article and speech:
“Remember, elites have no party. Elites have no nation,” he said. “Their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price at the expense of the American worker.”
He added: “The Teamsters are not interested if you have a D, R or an I next to your name. We want to know one thing: What are you doing to help American workers?”
“Never forget, American workers own this nation. We are not renters. We are not tenants. Wut the corporate elite treat us like squatters, and that is a crime. We’ve got to fix it,” he said.
see also: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/16/teamsters-sean-obrien-trump-rnc-speech
He’s not wrong, but the RNC is a convention of Elites.
I suspect he is anticipating a Trump presidency and wants to counteract the “UAW is a bunch of socialists who stumped for Biden” rhetoric.
He knows that Biden and democratic policies have been good to unions, heck the teamsters pension fund was even bailed out by them in 2022, preventing large pension cuts to 350,000 union workers.
Going to be a real leopard ate my face moment if Trump wins and fills the national labor board with anti union officials again.
It’s especially inexplicable because in straw polls Biden has a clear lead in support among teamster members.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/us/politics/teamsters-trump-biden.html
“But you know,” Mr. Palmer added, “you can pick up a snake and play with it, but if you play with it enough, it’s going to bite you eventually.”
Maybe he hates his job
Watch the video. I also linked to the speech as transcribed by realclearpolitics (though I think there’s a couple errors in there).
We need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ. These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption.
