The Turbulent Teamsters

American Decades | Date: 2001

THE TURBULENT TEAMSTERS

Teamsters and Crime

Once a union that represented coach and wagon drivers, the Brotherhood of Teamsters dominated the trucking industry by the 1950s. Few industries were as vulnerable to under-the-table or illicit operations as was trucking. In the 1950s the connections between the Teamsters and gangsters became public and ultimately led to the ouster of the Teamsters union from the AFL-CIO.

Suspicions Build

Trouble started when Teamsters president Dave Beck was accused by the AFL-CIO of abusing union funds. Such suspicions only brought the character of all union leadership into question. The first indication of the seriousness of Beck's activities, and its effect on the entire AFL-CIO, came in March 1957 when Labor Secretary James P. Marshall rejected George Meany's nomination of Beck to serve as a delegate to a committee of the United National International Labor Organization in Hamburg, Germany. On 9 April 1957 AFL-CIO president Meany attacked Beck without calling him by name, but the implication was clear: the Teamsters were a blot on organized labor.

The McClellan Committee

Beginning in May the Senate Select Committee on Labor-Management Relations, under Arkansas senator John McClellan, investigated the Teamsters and publicly accused Beck of misuse of funds. When called as a witness before the Senate committee, Beck invoked the Fifth Amendment more than two hundred times during his three-month testimony, lending credence to the committee's suspicion that he was "dirty." The AFL-CIO expelled Beck on 20 May; he was shortly thereafter indicted on grand-larceny charges, after which he decided not to run for reelection as Teamsters president. His vice-president and heir apparent, a pugnacious fireplug named James R. (Jimmy) Hoffa, had an equally suspicious background linked to racketeer Johnny Dio.

Hoffa Takes Charge

After Beck's expulsion the Teamsters promised to support him, charging that the AFL-CIO had acted outside its authority. Beck attempted, meanwhile, to move Hoffa in as a temporary president, which only brought stiffer opposition to Hoffa. The Senate committee again acted, calling Hoffa to testify in August 1957 on charges of misappropriation of funds. Like Beck, he took the Fifth Amendment repeatedly. On 4 October, despite Hoffa's troubles, in an election considered suspect by many and outright fraudulent by some, Hoffa was named the new Teamsters president. Polls showed that the rank and file opposed Hoffa three-to-one, and that 64 percent of the public opposed having him as Teamsters president. The AFL-CIO did not want the Teamsters' activities to taint it further, and it indicted the Teamsters for their operations. In September the Senate added new charges against Hoffa, and in October a federal judge barred Hoffa from assuming the presidency due to "election irregularities."

A Blank Check

The Teamsters stood by their choice of president, resisting all efforts at a cleanup. Hoffa escaped a wiretapping charge in June 1958 on a hung jury, but his predecessor was not as lucky: Beck was found guilty of grand larceny in November 1957, then in February 1959 found guilty of tax evasion. A Seattle, Washington, court also convicted Beck of embezzlement in December 1957. Hoffa finally assumed the full presidency of the union and even attempted to unite it with the Longshoreman's Union in an organization called the Conference on Transportation Unity. On 25 September 1958 the Teamsters thumbed their noses at the U.S. government, the AFL-CIO, and public opinion when it gave Hoffa a blank check to use union funds as he saw fit. Only after repeated efforts did Hoffa agree to government " reforms" in the union, but even those were halfhearted and seldom enforced.

Robert Kennedy's Crusade

The government was not through with Hoffa, however: in 1960 the new president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, appointed his brother, Robert, as U.S. attorney general. Robert made it a personal crusade to stamp out organized crime, and he pursued Hoffa as the most visible link between crime and the unions. He never convicted Hoffa, and, long after the assassinations of both Kennedys, Hoffa fended off federal authorities in the courts. Eventually, however, in 1964 the U.S. government convicted Hoffa on charges of jury tampering and jailed the Teamsters leader from 1967 to 1971. President Richard Nixon pardoned Hoffa in 1971 on the condition he resign as president of the Teamsters. Even so, Hoffa announced that he would make a new run at the Teamsters presidency and continued his efforts to gain the presidency in secret. Apparently he threatened some of the new union leaders who had come into power during his absence. After dinner with two members of organized crime at a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, restaurant in 1975, Hoffa disappeared, probably murdered in a mob hit. He was declared "presumed dead" in 1982.

Source:

Steven Brill, The Teamsters (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978).

Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.