John Palmer is an IBT Vice President for the Southern Region and member of Local 657 in San Antonio, Texas. A long time Teamsters for a Democratic Union member, Palmer joins the O’Brien-Zuckerman 2021 Slate as a candidate for IBT Vice President At-Large. Palmer has been a member since 1987, when he started as a driver for ABF after serving in the US Army as a Medic.

Palmer joins the OZ 2021 campaign because “the labor movement is under attack like no other time in history and our current leadership is stuck in a bygone era, asleep at the wheel.” Palmers priorities for transforming IBT Leadership, based on 16 years leading numerous organizing victories, are to organize the membership for contract fights and attacks from the outside, organizing the unorganized, and building unity “so we can take on the important fights ahead.”