Jimmy Hoffa's Life & Contribution to Labor

Introduction: Jimmy Hoffa was the leader of the largest union in the United States, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He was fervent, some might even say fanatical in his support of the Teamsters. He often faced conflicts with law enforcement and union leadership. Many speculate that his dealings with organized crime leaders resulted in his disappearance or murder in 1975. It is speculated that Hoffa was murdered by the Mafia because he was so eager to get back into office that the Mafia felt he might trade information in exchange for lifting the restrictions the forced him out of the Teamsters Union when Nixon pardoned him in 1971.

According to an essay by Richard Behar published on the Time Inc. website, the federal government became involved in supervising the Teamsters Union following a 1989 settlement of a racketeering suit that charged the union's leadership with having a long standing relationship with the American Mafia. The record speaks for itself. Four of the union's past seven presidents had been indicted on criminal charges; three of them including Jimmy Hoffa went to prison. To avoid a government-imposed trusteeship, the Teamsters Union agreed to allow the 1.6 million members to freely elect their president (Behar).

According to a lengthy article by Pat Zacharias published by The Detroit News, Jimmy Hoffa never intended to become a union organizer. He job at the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company

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igning up new members. Hoffa decided that the quickest way to spread the Teamster message into other regions of the country was to organize the long-haul drivers. He traveled up and down the highways pulling up at the side of the road alongside sleeping truck drivers, giving them his union sales pitch. Zacharias notes that Hoffa rapidly rose to power in the national Teamsters union. In 1952, when Dave Beck won the International presidency, Jimmy Hoffa was elected International vice president. In 1953, as President of the Central Conference of Teamsters, Hoffa negotiated for all cartage drivers in twenty Midwestern and Southern states, and he sought to bring Eastern locals into the unified Teamster bargaining network. A Senate Committee called the McClellan Committed investigating improper labor practices in the late 1950s. As a result, Dave Beck was convicted for embezzlement, larceny and income tax evasion. The AFL-CIO expelled the Teamsters. As a result, in October 1957 with Beck still in prison, Hoffa became President of the now independent Teamsters union. The Teamsters brought the nation's long haul trucking industry under one labor agreement. Along the way, they boosted union members' wages and paved the way for Teamster
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Approximate Word count = 1267
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)