Teamsters Won’t Endorse a Candidate for President in 2024

The leadership of the 1.3-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a statement Wednesday it would not back a presidential candidate, a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris, who has the endorsement of the country’s other powerful labor unions.

The decision by the Teamsters board, while short of an endorsement for former President Donald J. Trump, vindicated Mr. Trump’s strategy of wooing the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, a leader who has repeatedly signaled his willingness to chart his own path. The board’s vote was 14 for not endorsing and three for Ms. Harris. No board member backed Mr. Trump.

“Unfortunately neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Mr. O’Brien said in the statement issued by the board.

Mr. O’Brien’s equivalence between the two candidates could be seen as a boost for Mr. Trump, especially considering the same statement noted that Ms. Harris backed pro-organizing legislation, known as the PRO Act, while Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing so-called right-to-work legislation, which would prohibit mandatory union dues payments from workers who opt out of a unionized workplace.

But the former president worked hard to curry Mr. O’Brien’s favor, inviting him to his private club and residence, Mar-a-Lago, this summer and then granting him his wish for a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in July. The Democratic convention rebuffed him.

Mr. O’Brien’s openness to Mr. Trump — who angered other unions by appointing anti-labor members to the National Labor Relations Board and praising Elon Musk recently for a willingness to fire striking workers — has badly divided the union.