Compact Magazine: Restoring the American Worker’s Agency

The politics of American organized labor are changing. In 2024, Sean O’Brien became the first Teamsters president in the organization’s 120-plus-year history to address the Republican National Convention. In his speech, O’Brien declared the union beholden to no party and ready to work with anyone who would put American workers first. Republicans like me took him up on it, and we are beginning to deliver real results.

The response to this realignment from some of America’s most powerful corporations and their friends in the media has been to smear our efforts as a betrayal of conservative economic principles and social values. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Americans should recognize these corporations’ antics for the political gamesmanship that they are.