Jimmy Hoffa

Background

James Riddle Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, to John and Viola (Riddle) Hoffa, and grew up in a family of four children. His father, of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, died of lung disease in 1920. His mother was of Irish ancestry. The family moved to Detroit in 1924, where Hoffa lived for most of his life.

Hoffa left school at 14 and began full-time manual work to help support his family. He entered labor organizing through a grocery-chain job, where workers faced low wages and insecure conditions. His early experience in Detroit's working-class economy preceded his long association with the Teamsters.

Career

Hoffa began organizing workers while employed by a grocery chain. In 1932, after refusing to work for a shift foreman, he left the job and joined Local 299 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) as an organizer in Detroit. The Teamsters, founded in 1903, represented truck drivers and warehouse workers. From 1933 to 1935, Hoffa recruited members, including truck drivers, and became a prominent regional organizer. He later became president of Local 299 and led Detroit-area Teamsters groups and Michigan Teamsters organizations.

At the IBT convention in 1952, Hoffa became a national vice-president. The IBT was a national labor union whose membership grew substantially during the mid-twentieth century. In 1957, he succeeded Dave Beck as its general president. During his presidency, Hoffa worked to extend the union's reach and protect it from organizing competition. The IBT was expelled from the AFL-CIO in 1957 amid allegations of corruption and disputes over Hoffa's leadership. The AFL-CIO was a federation of American labor unions; its convention voted to end the Teamsters' affiliation.

In 1964, Hoffa secured the National Master Freight Agreement, bringing most over-the-road truck drivers in North America under a common agreement. The Teamsters grew to more than 2.3 million members at its peak during his leadership. He also established DRIVE, a Teamsters political action committee, in 1963. His tenure was marked by investigations and criminal prosecutions. In 1964 he was convicted in separate trials of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud connected with misuse of a union pension fund. He began serving an aggregate 13-year sentence in 1967 at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

Frank Fitzsimmons became acting union president while Hoffa was imprisoned. Hoffa resigned as IBT president in June 1971, and Fitzsimmons was elected to succeed him. President Richard Nixon commuted Hoffa's sentence in December 1971, but the commutation barred Hoffa from direct or indirect labor-union management until March 1980. Hoffa unsuccessfully challenged that restriction in court. He later accepted a non-management position with Local 299 and sought to regain the Teamsters presidency.

Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975, after leaving his home in Lake Orion, Michigan, for a meeting at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township with Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone. Neither man was found to have been at the restaurant that afternoon, and Hoffa's fate was never definitively established. Investigators and crime historians have widely suspected that organized-crime figures were involved, but no one was charged in connection with his disappearance. He was declared legally dead in 1982.

Achievements

• Hoffa secured the 1964 National Master Freight Agreement, bringing most over-the-road truck drivers in North America under a single agreement.

• During Hoffa's leadership, Teamsters membership grew to more than 2.3 million at its peak, making the union the largest in the United States by membership.

• Hoffa helped consolidate local and regional trucker organizations into a larger national union structure, contributing to the Teamsters' expansion.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Hoffa: The Real Story

    (Hoffa's autobiography, published a few months after his d...)

    1975
  • The Trials of Jimmy Hoffa: An Autobiography

    (Hoffa's account of his criminal trials.)

    1970

  • The Strange Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa

    1976

  • The Teamsters

    1978

  • Hoffa! Ten Angels Swearing

    1965

  • Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

    1989

  • Hoffa

    1992

  • Hoffa and the Underworld

    1959

  • The State of the Unions

    1963

  • Hoffa and the Teamsters: A Study of Union Power

    1965

  • The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions

    1960

  • Jimmy Hoffa's Hot

    1959

  • The Hoffa Wars: Teamsters, Rebels, Politicians and the Mob

    1978

  • Tentacles of Power: The Story of Jimmy Hoffa

    1965

  • Kennedy Justice

    1971

  • Hoffa in Tennessee: The Chattanooga Trial That Brought Down an Icon

    2019

  • Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa

    2016

  • Mob Lawyer

    1994

  • All-American Mobster

    1995

  • Out of the Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa and the Remaking of the American Working Class

    2001

  • The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa

    1972

  • The Ominous Ear

    1968

  • Watergate: The Hidden History

    2012

  • Desperate Bargain: Why Jimmy Hoffa Had To Die

    1977

  • Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story

    2007

Membership

Hoffa's long-standing participation in the Teamsters included membership in Local 299 and several Michigan and regional Teamsters bodies. The IBT organized truck drivers and warehouse workers, while its local and regional councils coordinated union activity across particular areas. His leadership roles extended from local organizing to the union's national presidency.

• Served as national vice-president, general president, and president emeritus.

  International Brotherhood of Teamsters , United States

  1932 - 1975

• Became president of the local in 1946.

  International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 299 , United States

  1935 - 1971

• Michigan Conference of Teamsters , United States

  1942 - 1971

• Teamsters Joint Council 43 , United States

  1946 - 1971

• Central Conference of Teamsters , United States

  1953 - 1971

Connections

Hoffa was the son of John Hoffa and Viola (Riddle) Hoffa. He married Josephine Poszywak, whom he met during a laundry workers' strike. They had two children: daughter Barbara Ann Crancer and son James P. Hoffa. His wife died in 1980. Hoffa's family reported him missing after he failed to return home on July 30, 1975.

Father:

John Hoffa

He died in 1920 of lung disease.

Mother:

Viola (Riddle) Hoffa

Son:

James Phillip Hoffa

Also known as James P. Hoffa.

Daughter:

Barbara Ann Crancer

Also identified as Barbara Ann Hoffa.

Wife:

Josephine Poszywak

She died on September 12, 1980.

References

• The Hoffa Wars Dan E. Moldea's book about Hoffa, the Teamsters, labor politics, and organized crime.
  1978
• There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America Philip Dray's history of American labor, providing context for Hoffa's union career.
  2010
• The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer Anthony Bruno's book concerning Richard Kuklinski and claims associated with Hoffa's disappearance.
  2013