Union Whose Top Boss Spoke at GOP Convention ‘Isn’t Pro-Worker’
Until recently, Chris Griswold and Sean Harren were powerful and politically connected Teamster union bosses in California, as well as close allies of International Teamster President Sean O’Brien.
All the while, they were making unauthorized charges on their union credit cards, taking a total of at least $133,000 from forced dues-laden union treasuries to buy bottles of wine costing as much as $890 apiece and rack up restaurant tabs that “often surpassed $2,000, and sometimes topped $3,000.”
These charges of flagrant Big Labor corruption form part of a February 13 report from the Independent Disciplinary Officers. The IDO, as reporter Chuck Ross explained in a March 2 article for the Washington Free Beacon, is an “oversight body that the Teamsters created” in 1989 “at the behest of the Department of Justice.”
Report: Alleged Thieves Got Kid-Gloves Treatment From Sean O’Brien and Co.
National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented:
“According to attorney Robert Luskin, the author of this February’s IDO report recommending internal charges against Mr. Griswold and Mr. Harren, over 14 years, the two between them collected a total of more than $5 million in forced dues-funded salaries for union offices they were ineligible to hold.
“They were ineligible because they had twisted internal union rules so that they, and other officers of Teamster Local 986, could fork over a far lower share of their ample salaries in union dues than many more modestly compensated rank-and-file members of the local are forced to pay.
“The IDO report also states that international Teamster President Sean O’Brien was made aware of how Mr. Griswold and Mr. Harren had long been violating the bylaws of the union and systematically ripping off rank-and-filers.
“Far from publicly denouncing their fellow union officers’ corruption or taking action to recover the millions of dollars they had improperly extracted from workers, Mr. O’Brien and his cohorts allowed Mr. Griswold and Mr. Harren ‘to resign their positions without disciplinary action or monetary fine.’
“The two were even allowed ‘to keep a substantial portion of the ill-gotten benefit’ they had bestowed upon themselves!”
Mr. Mix continued: “International Teamster officials’ sweetheart deal with crooked Chris Griswold and Sean Harren is just the latest illustration of the fact that the Teamster union isn’t pro-worker in any meaningful sense of the word.
“Unfortunately, all too many candidates in both major parties have over the years courted the forced dues-fueled political support of Mr. O’Brien and his predecessors, while falsely claiming to be seeking ‘workers’ support.’
“In 2024, Mr. O’Brien was even awarded a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, even though the Teamster brass never did endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House that year.
“The Teamster czar sought to use the prime platform he had been handed to push Mr. Trump and his running mate, then Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, to repudiate the unmistakably pro-Right to Work record the first Trump Administration had compiled between January 2017 and January 2021.
“Of course, selling out Right to Work would have been tantamount to political suicide. As a nationwide Rasmussen poll released that September confirmed, registered Republican voters support the Right to Work principle by roughly a 10-to-one margin!”
Sean O’Brien Hasn’t Done Donald Trump Any Favors
Candidate Trump wisely refused to give in to Mr. O’Brien’s anti-Right to Work cajoling, and by the Teamster hierarchy’s own account this is the reason he never received the union’s endorsement, despite internal polling that showed Teamster members lopsidedly preferred him in the general election.
Unfortunately, since Mr. Trump captured a second presidential term in November 2024, he and his staff have allowed Mr. O’Brien and his inner circle to become what the D.C. Beltway calls “stakeholders” regarding labor-policy nominations and other key decisions.
For example, on November 22, 2024, the then-President-elect named recently ousted GOP Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.) as his nominee for labor secretary. Three days before that, Politico had reported that Ms. Chavez DeRemer’s name had been “privately raised” by Mr. O’Brien as “a top pick” for that Cabinet position.
During the 2023-24 Congress, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had been just one of three Republican elected officials on Capitol Hill to cosponsor the so-called “PRO Act,” legislation that would have authorized forced union financial support as a job condition in all 50 states.
Right to Work advocates had no choice but to oppose this nominee, but in March 2025 she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate over Committee officers’ and members’ objections.
Mr. Mix noted that, over the course of the year or so that has passed since her confirmation, allegations of her improper and unethical conduct have cropped up again and again:
“Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been accused of taking staffers to a Portland strip club during a formal work trip in Oregon. She allegedly required assistants to run personal errands for her. She has also been accused of drinking alcohol in the workplace and having an extramarital affair with a subordinate.
“The labor secretary has denied any claims of wrongdoing, but the reality is that she owes her current position to the fact that Sean O’Brien liked her record of supporting forced unionism while in Congress, and nothing else.
“Mr. O’Brien certainly didn’t do Donald Trump a favor by foisting Ms. Chavez-DeRemer on him and his administration. Indeed, he hasn’t done Mr. Trump any favors at all.
“Contrary to the self-serving propaganda churned out by Mr. O’Brien and other power-crazed Big Labor bosses, workers actually want elected officials to protect the individual freedom not to join or bankroll a union that may be corrupt or ineffective, or simply have aims that conflict with a worker’s aims.”
‘No Worker Should Be Forced To Bankroll the Teamsters Or Any Other Union’
Mr. Mix continued: “The fact that many workers who have seen Teamster bosses in operation don’t think the union serves their interests was highlighted just a few weeks ago in western Pennsylvania, when employees of North Huntingdon EMS/Rescue unanimously voted Teamster Local 205 union bosses out of power in their workplace.
“This NLRB Region 6-sponsored secret-ballot ‘decertification’ occurred only after freedom-loving EMS/Rescue overcame, with Right to Work attorneys’ help, obstruction tactics deployed with the clear aim of preventing any vote from ever happening.
“The truth is, no worker should be forced to bankroll the Teamsters or any other union.
“Any federal elected official, regardless of his or her party, who genuinely wishes to be pro-employee should support H.R.1232/S.533, the National Right to Work Act.
“This legislation properly leaves it up to the individual worker to decide whether or not a union is worthy of his or her financial support. No politician, union boss, or fellow worker is qualified to make that decision.”
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