Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and union members as the union weighs an endorsement in the presidential race, the union said Thursday.
The Teamsters set a meeting date of Sept. 16. But a Harris spokesman did not respond to questions about when the discussion would take place.
The planned meeting comes as the 1.3 million-member union faces an unusual election situation, including O’Brien speaking at the Republican National Convention.
“Our members are the backbone of this nation, working in all 50 states and representing every political stripe. We look forward to having a conversation about the direction of the country and the issues that matter to working people,” O’Brien said in a statement on the social media platform X.
It’s the latest development in a saga that has seen one of the nation’s most prominent labor unions wrestle internally and publicly with its endorsement decision. Harris agreed to meet with the Teamsters last month, but both parties have avoided publicly embracing each other, even as other major unions rallied around the vice president after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
The Teamsters met with former President Donald Trump in January as part of an interview process open to all 2024 candidates. The union invited Harris in July.
O’Brien angered Teamsters members by speaking at the RNC that month, where he complimented Trump after the attempted assassination. He also lashed out at corporations for their hostility toward unions, though he refrained from criticizing Trump administration policies, which many union leaders saw as an attack on organized labor.
O’Brien later accused Trump of “economic terrorism” when the former president cheered the idea of firing striking workers.
The Teamsters have historically supported Democrats, but the union has tried to win over the GOP, so it is likely that many union members will vote for Trump, as they did in 2016.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report gave the wrong day of the week on which the Teamsters made the announcement. It was Thursday.
