Word: hoffa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...TRUCKING: Fifteen cents divided the Teamsters and the trucking firms. The union (negotiating a major contract for the first time since 1958 without imprisoned Jimmy Hoffa) was demanding an hourly pay increase of 56? over the next three years and 21? in fringe benefits for the 250,000 members involved. The Teamsters now average between $3.25 and $3.80 an hour. The truckers offered 50? wage hikes with added benefits worth...
...fashion, Hoffa accomplished a great deal for the Teamsters. He molded the union, once a disparate collection of feuding regional fiefdoms, into the most powerful labor force in the nation. A formidable bargainer, he scrupulously kept to the letter of contracts once they were signed and swiftly stamped out wildcat strikes. By equalizing drivers' wages throughout the country, he eliminated labor costs as a factor in competition and thereby helped stabilize the trucking industry. He opened the union's doors to Negroes and, characteristically, disdained any praise as a civil rights advocate. It was only "bread-and-butter...
Paying a man his price-and Hoffa was sure that every man has one-finally led to his downfall. He was given his eight-year sentence in 1964 for tampering with a jury hearing charges that Hoffa had accepted more than $1,000,000 in illegal payments from a Detroit trucking firm-a Taft-Hartley violation that carried a maximum one-year sentence. Later in the same year, a federal jury convicted Hoffa of fraudulently diverting at least $1,000,000 in union funds and gave him the five-year sentence that is still under appeal...
Peanut-Butter Sandwich. Though his term as Teamsters' president runs until 1971, prison authorities have stated flatly that Hoffa will not be permitted to operate the union from the Lewisburg penitentiary-where he made the uncharacteristically delicate gesture of using his raincoat to hide the handcuffs on his wrists. Like any other prisoner, he will be allowed only seven letters a week-all of which will be read by the warden and returned if they contain business matters-and three hours monthly for visits by his family or attorneys working on his appeal...
While he is in prison, Hoffa's $100,000 salary will be reduced to a $48,000 living allowance for his wife, and the union will be headed by his Detroit crony, Frank E. Fitzsimmons, under the title of general vice president. Chubby and smiling, Fitzsimmons will have his hands full trying to keep the Teamsters' regional rivalry from re-emerging. "He's just a peanut-butter sandwich," said one union official. "He'll melt in no time...