While the national International Brotherhood of Teamsters has declined to endorse any candidate in the 2024 presidential race, Joint Council 32 has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticker.
And they're not alone among joint councils around the country. Politico's Alex Nieves reports in West Coast Teamsters break with national chapter in endorsing Harris:
West Coast Teamsters announced their endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, just minutes after national Teamsters leadership declined to issue a presidential endorsement. . . .
Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42 — which are made up of 39 local unions representing 300,000 members in California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam — wrote in a statement that Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have a history of supporting expanded labor protections for workers, like the proposed Protect the Right to Organize Act and a Minnesota law that will ban employers from forcing workers to attend anti-labor meetings. . . .
Update 9/19: News of additional Joint Council endorsements of Harris-Walz in swing states in coming in. Rolling Stone reports in Teamsters Won't Endorse a Candidate, So Local Unions Back Harris:
After the International Brotherhood of Teamsters broke with tradition and announced that it would not endorse a candidate for president this election, several joint councils in the battleground states of Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin have since publicly pledged their support for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. . . .
End Update
On the X platform, Minnesota Reformer deputy editor Max Nesterak posted the press release announcing the Joint Council's endorsement:
the Teamsters joint council representing the Upper Midwest announced their endorsement of Harris-Walz following national's decision not to endorse https://t.co/Rx8tHzuiDC pic.twitter.com/5lruzq6c15
— Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) September 18, 2024
Local unions in Joint Council 32 represent a wide variety of people in upper Midwest workplaces across the upper Midwest:
Our 12 Local Unions include more than 75,000 active and retired Teamster members in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota.
They work in many crafts. Some are public employees, including law enforcement personnel, public defenders, snow plow drivers, court reporters, University cooks and nutrition experts, facilities managers, grounds keepers and maintenance workers. Some are over-the-road, car haul or small package drivers. Others are drivers for bakeries, laundries, dairies, liquor distributors, school bus companies and health care facilities. Still others work in warehouses, manufacturing plants, grocery stores and paper mills, as well as for large employers such as Honeywell and United Parcel Service. They also work for newspapers or as auto mechanics. . . .
Image: Webpage banner from the Teamsters Joint Council 32 Local Unions page.
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