EXCLUSIVE: Less than two years ago, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin nearly came to blows during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, laying bare the long-running rift between the GOP and organized labor.
On Friday, that same HELP Committee, now led by Republicans who maintain a majority in the Senate, extended an invitation to O’Brien to testify in an upcoming hearing on labor laws.
HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., called O’Brien “an important voice in the conversation” on labor, citing his role as a “union leader representing over a million workers.”
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Cassidy’s invitation comes after the Teamsters’ decision in September 2024 not to endorse a presidential candidate – the first time the union did so since 1996 – and follows O’Brien’s remarks at last year’s Republican National Convention, the first time in history that the organization’s leader addressed the RNC.
The hearing, which is set to take place next Wednesday, as well as O’Brien’s invitation to it, is emblematic of the GOP’s slow crawl toward embracing parts of a working-class union message that would have turned heads even half a decade ago.
Cassidy’s perch atop the Senate panel that oversees labor and pensions has given the Louisiana Republican a unique role in managing that shift. The committee also often sits at the center of the divide between proponents of the party’s populist swing and those that remain skeptical of it.
In the 119th Congress, the Senate HELP Committee opened probes into major corporations for allegedly mistreating customers and spearheaded an effort to “strengthen workplace benefits for independent workers.”
In the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has displayed his distance from a Republican Party once completely deferential to business by needling corporate executives with questions during congressional hearings. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Lori Chavez-Deremer, was heavily backed by organized labor groups, including O’Brien’s Teamsters.
For every Hawley and Chavez-Deremer, however, the GOP continues to maintain roots on Wall Street and in corporate America – making the party’s attempt to dip its toes into pro-labor is a tightrope effort that often involves balancing the support of constituencies whose interests are in direct competition.
Prior to becoming vice president, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance visited the striking United Auto Workers to show support for their cause. Before joining Congress, Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., ran a large healthcare company and one of America’s most notable hedge funds, respectively.
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That it is Mullin’s Republicans who asked O’Brien to testify next week underscores how rapidly the GOP has changed its tune on labor, especially in the wake of a presidential election that saw Republicans powered to victory by gains among groups that have traditionally been reliable sources of Democratic support.
In 2023, O’Brien and Mullin – who remains a member of the Committee and will be present for the labor leader’s testimony on Wednesday – hurled insults at one another during a hearing titled “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families.”
Though the degree of the scuffle may have shocked onlookers, its participants came as a surprise to none. Three years earlier, O’Brien’s Teamsters issued a resounding endorsement of then-candidate Joe Biden’s presidential campaign – in keeping with the group’s streak of endorsing Democrats in every presidential election during the 21st century.
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In a remarkable back-and-forth for the typically yawn-filled congressional hearing, Mullin, whom O’Brien had said in an earlier social media post was putting on a “tough guy act” and challenged him to meet “anyplace, anytime cowboy,” rebuffed the union chief in an explosive exchange.
“This is a time. This is a place,” Mullin chirped at O’Brien. “You want to run your mouth. We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”
Thanks to a timely intervention from then-committee Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the two avoided a physical confrontation in the committee room, and eventually made amends during Chavez-Deremer’s confirmation process earlier this year.
On Wednesday, O’Brien will testify alongside Marvin Kaplan, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, and Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
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