Watchdog report reveals nation's oldest railroad union spent millions on Democrats and casinos while its members backed Trump

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the oldest labor union in the United States, funneled 99% of its party committee donations to Democrats even as its rank-and-file members overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump, according to a new report from the American Accountability Foundation.

The report paints a picture of a union leadership class that is completely disconnected from the workers it claims to represent. In the 2024 cycle alone, BLET made 24 separate donations to Democratic Party committees totaling $53,400. Republican committees received two donations. Total: $2,000.

And it gets worse. The AAF report alleges the union burned through more than $26 million on political activity in recent years, more than $5 million on hotels and conferences, and north of $2 million specifically on casinos and resorts. All funded by the dues of working men and women hauling America's freight.

A union leadership that loathes its own base

The political disconnect here isn't subtle. It's a canyon. Fox News reported that exit polling from 2024 showed 56% of working-class voters without a college degree supported Trump, compared to 42% for Kamala Harris. Teamsters internal polling showed a 60/40 split in favor of Trump. The men who drive trains, move goods, and keep the economy running didn't need a pollster to tell them where they stood.

Their union bosses apparently didn't care.

BLET endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket in 2024. In the lead-up to the election, the union's social media operation functioned as a one-sided messaging campaign. The AAF report found:

"In the lead-up to the 2024 election, BLET issued 14 tweets that criticized the actions of the first Trump administration while praising the Biden administration's railroad policies."

The report continued:

"The messaging was clearly intended to skew union members toward the Democratic presidential ticket. In these tweets, they attacked nearly every major Trump-era rail policy decision while framing the Biden administration's actions positively."

This wasn't neutral communication with members. It was political advocacy dressed up as union business.

Follow the money to the casino floor

The spending patterns detailed in the report are the kind of thing that should make every dues-paying BLET member furious. More than $5 million on hotels and conferences is already eye-catching for a labor union. But the AAF zeroed in on a more specific figure:

"While it's bad enough that BLET spent over $5,000,000 on hotels and conferences, even more concerning is the fact that the union spent over $2,000,000 on casinos and resorts alone."

The report added that "the union appears more concerned with staying at entertaining destination resorts than they do being thrifty with their members' dues."

Meanwhile, multiple top BLET officials earn more than $200,000 annually. The union's president and vice president each pull in more than $300,000 a year. These are the people deciding that a locomotive engineer's dues money is best spent at a resort casino and in Democratic campaign coffers.

The pattern goes back years

This isn't a recent development. The AAF report traced the union's political spending habits back at least to 2016:

"For example, in the 2016 cycle, BLET donated $15,000 to the DNC when they were the nexus for GOTV for the Hillary Clinton campaign but never donated a dollar to the RNC."

By 2024, the imbalance had only deepened. The report noted:

"In 2024, long after it had become clear that industrial union membership was strongly behind President Trump, the BLET leadership still hadn't gotten the message, making 24 different donations to Democrat party committees for a total of $53,400 and a mere two donations to Republican committees for a spare $2000."

A 27-to-1 ratio in donations. For a union whose members voted the other direction by wide margins. The leadership didn't miss the message. They ignored it.

The union's response says everything

When asked for comment, a BLET spokesperson offered a single sentence: "We do not comment on false press releases by dark money groups who have no accountability to the truth."

No specific rebuttal. No counter-figures. No explanation for the casino spending or the donation ratio. Just a dismissal and an accusation. That's the kind of response you give when you don't have a better one.

AAF President Tom Jones didn't mince words about what the report revealed:

"The men pulling America's freight voted for President Trump because they believe in secure borders and putting American workers first. But their union bosses are busy living large on member dues and carrying water for the Left."

Jones called the union a "woke political machine that's doing everything it can against the Trump-Vance agenda, and likewise, against everyday railroad workers," adding that every BLET member "should be asking where their hard-earned dollars are really going."

A reckoning that's been building

The broader story here extends well beyond one railroad union. For decades, Big Labor operated under the assumption that union membership meant Democratic votes. Leadership endorsed Democrats. Dues funded Democrats. And workers were expected to fall in line.

That compact shattered. Working-class America realigned, and union leadership refused to follow. The Teamsters famously declined to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024 after their internal polling showed members overwhelmingly favoring Trump. That was at least an acknowledgment of reality, even if it fell short of action.

BLET didn't even manage that. They endorsed Harris-Walz and kept writing checks to Democratic committees at a rate of more than 26-to-1 over Republicans. They spent their members' money at casinos and resorts while their members worried about rail safety, job security, and the cost of groceries.

There is something clarifying about a union that applauded Vice President JD Vance earlier this year while simultaneously funding the political infrastructure that opposes his agenda. It reveals the game: say the right things to the members, then spend their money the opposite way.

The question isn't whether BLET's leadership betrayed its members. The numbers answer that plainly enough. The question is how long the members will keep paying for it.