Workers see through union leaders’ duplicity, which is one of the reasons why they have been gradually leaving unions for decades.
Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) is teaming up with Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to introduce legislation capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent. A political ally of both senators is Teamsters union president Sean O’Brien. While praising Hawley for going after credit card companies, O’Brien said on his podcast Better Bad Ideas, “You’ve got a lot of our members, our constituents, who are paying 28, 29 percent on credit cards that they’ll never be able to pay off.”
If O’Brien thinks that’s unfair, then he should look in the mirror. The Teamsters-branded credit card offered only to members or their families has interest rates as high as 27.49 percent, and the union makes millions from it.
The Teamster Privilege Credit Card Program is a partnership with Capital One bank to offer a Mastercard credit card. It is advertised as having a “LOW interest rate” for people with “excellent” credit. But the lowest APR it offers, after a promotional 0 percent rate, is a variable rate of 15.15 percent, over five points higher than the 10 percent cap in Hawley and Sanders’s bill. Other customers with “excellent” credit will pay a 21.15 percent or 25.15 percent APR.
Customers with only “good” credit will pay the 27.49 percent APR. So the Teamsters card illustrates the facts about credit card interest rates that Hawley and Sanders want the law to ignore: Less creditworthy borrowers pay higher rates, and even people with strong credit scores will often pay above a 10 percent APR for a short-term, unsecured loan.
Access to the card, which is restricted to Teamsters members, retirees, or their family members, is considered a union benefit on the Teamsters’ website. It is advertised as being “Built for Teamsters, Backed by Teamsters.”
O’Brien is likely fine with this apparent hypocrisy because the Teamsters get paid handsomely by Capital One to promote the card. Disclosure forms filed with the Department of Labor show that the Teamsters received from Capital One $1.28 million in 2023, $1.52 million in 2022, and $1.5 million in 2021.
O’Brien acts as though he is concerned for his members’ ability to pay back credit card debt while his union makes millions from offering a credit card at rates he considers unfair. Workers see through union leaders’ duplicity, which is one of the reasons why they have been gradually leaving unions for decades, with the current membership rate at an all-time low.