US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
WASHINGTON (Reuters): In a meeting with one of America's most powerful unions in September at its Washington headquarters, Vice President Kamala Harris said she'd protect union jobs and workers' livelihoods better than Donald Trump.
But leaders of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, long staunchly allied with her Democratic Party, appeared unconvinced. When Harris argued that her Republican rival was no champion of the working class, the union bosses grilled her, questioning whether she and President Joe Biden had done enough for union workers, according to a Teamster leader who recounted the Sept 16 meeting to Reuters. Within days, the union publicly embarrassed Harris by declining to endorse a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1996.
