This article originally appeared in the Detroit News July 23, 2024. 

The Republican Party’s current flirtation with organized labor reminds me of the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

You remember that one: The scorpion wants to cross the river but cannot swim. He asks the frog for a ride. The frog worries the scorpion might sting him while crossing the river.

“Why would I do that? You would die and I would drown,” says the scorpion.

Persuaded by this irrefutable logic, the frog agrees and the scorpion climbs aboard. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog.

“Why?” asks the frog. “Now we will both die.”

“It is in my nature,” says the scorpion.

Ever the iconoclast, Donald Trump invited Sean O’Brien to speak at last week’s Republican National Convention. O’Brien is the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

O’Brien, who had requested the opportunity, delivered a barnstorming speech and attacked corporations, chambers of commerce and elites. He said he was the first Teamster in the union’s 121-year history to address the RNC.

Trump and O’Brien are both skilled in the art of the deal. But who comes out ahead?

Republicans are betting on a generational political realignment. The working class, long a part of the Democratic coalition, is moving to the right. This migration includes rank-and-file union members — auto workers, truckers, electricians — who embraced Trump even while their unions backed Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Salena Zito documents this migration in her 2018 book, “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.” Zito looked at Rust Belt counties that swung 20 or more points from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016, and she credits the blue-collar vote as a significant factor in Trump’s victory.

If these voters continue to move right, figures the GOP, it will weaken a core Democratic constituency. Brilliant, right?

Maybe.

If the GOP embraced organized labor, the party would have to compromise on the key principle of worker freedom.

Unions have long relied on coercion to build clout. Unions require people to pay dues to keep their jobs. Unions force workers into monopoly contracts in which even nonmembers must accept the terms. Unions make it difficult for individuals to leave the union. It is almost impossible for a group of workers to switch to a new union.

Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien made his expectations clear in his RNC speech. He attacked right-to-work laws, which say a worker cannot be fired for refusing to pay a union. O’Brien spent a full minute praising U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., highlighting Hawley’s flip-flop on right-to-work. When a politician earns praise like that it is not because he convinced the union to change its views.

Not only would unions expect Republicans to embrace labor coercion, but they would also stand in the way of other priorities — things that lead to greater prosperity like education reform, tax reform, expanding the gig economy and reining in the administrative state. Unions would change the GOP more than the GOP would change unions.

As remarkable as O’Brien’s “Nixon goes to China” moment is, it masks his union’s true allegiances.

There is a great disparity in the political views of the rank-and-file versus union leadership. A Teamsters internal straw poll shows 37% support for Trump today. In 2020, Trump won 40% of union households.

But 97% of the Teamsters’ campaign contributions went to Democrats in the 2020 cycle. The Center for Union Facts found that the union spent $9 million on advocacy from 2019 to 2022, with 99% going to liberal causes.

Vinnie Vernuccio, who runs the Institute for the American Worker, writes that O’Brien has much to gain from his RNC speech. Best case, the Teamsters boss can persuade the party faithful to abandon their principles. Even if that fails, O’Brien signals bipartisanship to his own members.

The GOP is intrigued by the prospect of union dollars and votes. Don’t fall for it.

You are not the scorpion in this story.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.