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It’s “no secret” where the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ leadership stands on tariff implementation, union boss Sean O’Brien testified before Congress.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told O’Brien he believes he is sincere when he speaks about public policy that grows a “thriving middle class in this country.”
“That’s not an act,” Moreno suggested, to which O’Brien confirmed.
“I think someone referred to me as a self-promoting union boss in one of their articles, but I’m not a self-promoting union boss. I’m a truck driver from a middle-class family that appreciates and embraces the preservation of the middle class,” O’Brien said before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation.
“There’s no secret what our position is as a union on tariffs.”
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O’Brien took heat from the left for agreeing to speak at the 2024 Republican National Convention, and has been more open than some union bosses to engage with the Trump administration.
In the hearing, he acknowledged public concern over the timing and specifics regarding the implementation of Trump’s tariff regime and its effect on the U.S. consumer.
However, he lambasted the 1993 NAFTA agreement forged under the Clinton administration, blaming the now-former framework for shipping jobs overseas.
“Remember when we had plenty of industry in this country where we were producing goods and services. We were manufacturing steel. We were doing a lot of this work. And then these bad trade deals happened…”
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O’Brien added that while there is concern over job loss as well, there are other cost factors at play with the new tariff regime.
He said corporate America should shoulder some of any negative fallout from the tariffs.
“Take a little less in your own pocket, stop giving more to Wall Street, and just reward your workers and don’t pass this cost on the consumers,” he said.
“We’ve got to take a look at excessive compensation with a lot of these CEOs and these corporations and their willingness to reward Wall Street instead of the people that work in these jobs.”
The Teamsters, which represent UPS workers as one of their largest workforces, also have been concerned over foreign nationals, who may not know English or U.S. traffic laws, being allowed to swoop in and take commercial driver’s license (CDL) jobs, O’Brien said.
Trump in April formally decreed strict English proficiency standards for CDL drivers, which Moreno also asked the union boss about.
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Moreno noted that as an immigrant himself – from Colombia – his parents required him to learn English, and asked O’Brien his thoughts on the flood of English-illiterate drivers on the same roads his members carry parcels every day.
“I think it’s extremely frightening, to be honest with you. You had a lot of trucking companies that were actively recruiting in foreign countries to bring people over here on those work visas… and train them and put them on the roads – where they’re not from this country, they don’t know this language,” he said.
“So our members are very passionate. By the way, our membership of 1.3 million is well representative from first-generation immigrants who came over here the right way, who learned the language, learned the laws, obtain this CDLs properly. And went to work and everything else.”
He suggested another solution being that Mexican truck drivers could drop their trailers at the U.S. border, to be picked up by American drivers who finish the trip.
