It is no secret that when it comes to organized labor, the Republican Party has very few friends.
For decades, the party has consistently cast itself as the party of business and economic growth while arguing that labor unions have stymied the economy, driven up costs, and engaged in partisan political activism that has little, if anything, to do with representing its workers.
As a consequence, labor unions have been a key constituency of the Democratic Party for nearly a century. In turn, the party’s presidents have championed numerous policies aimed at expanding union power, and they have used the power of the federal government’s labor oversight agencies to boost union creation.
As a matter of policy and law, there are two distinct categories of organized labor: public sector and private sector. Public sector unions collectively bargain with government entities whose employees are paid by taxpayers, while private sector unions organize against corporations and businesses.
Examples of national public sector unions include organizations such as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; the American Federation of Teachers; the National Association of Government Employees; and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. National private sector unions include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Writers Guild of America. Some of these national unions overlap between private and public sectors, but their local organizations all fall within one camp or the other.
But as the industrial power of the United States has declined, so has the power of private sector organized labor. Policies pursued by administrations of both parties led to deindustrialization, mass migration, the offshoring of industry, and the hollowing out of communities in Midwestern states that had traditionally relied on manufacturing to thrive. This has left the members of organized labor in the private sector politically homeless.
The vast majority of labor unions allied themselves with the Democratic Party for so long that the party now simply expects their support. At the same time, the Republican Party has reflexively taken a hostile stance toward organized labor, destroying any incentive that unions would otherwise have to work with the GOP to advance policies that would be beneficial for everyone.
Now it should be noted that the Republican Party has always enjoyed a modicum of support from a handful of labor unions, primarily in law enforcement. The Fraternal Order of Police, although not technically a national union, is the nation’s largest police labor group and has endorsed Donald Trump all three times he has run for president. The organization previously backed George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and John McCain in 2008.
The relationship between law enforcement unions and Republicans has even had effects on labor policy. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) enacted legislation that made it much more difficult for government unions to exist. The law was primarily targeted at teachers unions, but it affected other public sector unions as well — notably, law enforcement, firefighters, and correctional officers unions were all exempted.
With the exception of some corners of public sector unions, the issue of labor organizing has consistently been a partisan one. Democrats support unions, and Republicans oppose them. But due to changes in the economy and shifts in voter concerns, the GOP has started to make significant inroads among union members, especially in industrial areas such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The political realignment among union members was expedited by Trump’s arrival on the political scene. The brand of pugnacious populism that he brought to the campaign trail, promising to bring back manufacturing, end unfair trade deals, and secure the border, appealed to many working-class voters, union and nonunion alike. In each of his previous presidential campaigns, Trump has secured a significantly larger amount of support from working-class voters when compared to previous Republican nominees, even as he has pushed away some of the wealthier classes that had previously been the bedrock of Republican coalitions.
For the GOP, this influx of working-class voters has put many leaders in the party in a bind: Either shift policy goals by prioritizing more working-class and union issues, and risk alienating its entrenched supporters among corporate and business groups, or continue its brand of corporate-friendly policy and risk angering its new voter base.
Chris Griswold, the policy director at American Compass, a conservative think tank, told me in an interview that organized labor is now effectively stuck between both parties, neither of which is truly interested in advancing their interests.
“Working Americans want a real, meaningful voice in the workplace,” he said. “Both parties should be competing to offer them that. Instead, you’ve got one party that takes unions for granted, and therefore has little interest in creatively reforming our broken labor laws, and another that has spent decades actively trying to undercut unions and cheering their demise.”
That lack of competition for union support has likely contributed to the fact that the leadership of the labor unions have stuck with the Democratic Party through thick and thin. At the same time, the leadership of these unions has increasingly become more ideologically partisan, embracing the Democratic line on a host of social issues that have absolutely nothing to do with advancing the interests of their workers. A quick glance at the website of the union umbrella organization the AFL-CIO includes abortion access, expanded immigration, and negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza as among its institutional priorities.
The lone exception is Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters Union, who has angered the Democratic establishment by showing a willingness to engage with any candidate of either party who is interested in advancing the priorities of his organization. His organization has even donated to several Republican candidates, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) — a sharp departure from previous years.
In July, O’Brien made history when he spoke at the Republican National Convention and used his platform to excoriate big businesses for what he said was a refusal to support their employees while leaving taxpayers to pick up the slack.
“Massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Wal-Mart take zero responsibility for the workers they employ,” O’Brien said. “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.”
O’Brien spoke at the convention at the invitation of Trump himself, something that Griswold told me is a good first step but insufficient if the Republican Party wants to be the party of workers going forward.
“I’m glad Trump invited the Teamsters president to speak at the RNC, but now, the GOP needs to decide whether they heard what he actually said,” he said. “And instead of getting angry at Republican outreach to labor, Democrats should be listening to what working people actually want and trying to win them back.”
If the Republican Party wants to earn the long-term support of the working class, it must continue to reevaluate its long held positions on economic policy. That means doing the hard work of reforming existing labor law so that unions and management are not always so antagonistic. European labor law often allows management and labor to work together as part of the same organization to address issues that benefit the whole company. American labor should be changed to allow such cooperation. And antitrust enforcement should be vigorously pursued to ensure a healthy and competitive market for workers wages.
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Whether it likes it or not, the Republican Party is no longer the party of big business and Wall Street. Corporations are finding new friends in the Democratic Party, while the working class wants to embrace the GOP. If the party is going to have a long-term future, it cannot continue to cling to the Chamber of Commerce-friendly policies that it championed in the 1990s and 2000s that led to mass migration and the hollowing out of the nation’s industrial base. And while that doesn’t necessarily mean opposing every big business-backed policy goal, a healthy skepticism toward corporate power would go a long way to shattering the notion that the Republican Party is unwilling to listen to the concerns of the working class.
O’Brien has shown a willingness to work with Republicans if they meet him at the table, including Trump. He has been roundly criticized for it by his colleagues and counterparts in organized labor who insist he is on a fool’s errand and only the Democratic Party actually cares about workers. It is entirely up to the leaders of the Republican Party to prove them wrong.