Word: teamster
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...loans to legitimate borrowers, but it also makes other loans mainly on the basis of friendship. All too frequently, says a U.S. Attorney in Chicago, the loans are not paid back, and no real effort is made to collect, especially if the borrower is a pal of a top Teamster official...
Officially, the fund is administered by eight Teamster officers and eight employer representatives. Four of the Teamsters' trustees have known connections with the Mafia: Frank Fitzsimmons, William Presser, Frank Ranney and Roy Williams. In practice, say federal investigators, just who gets money is determined by the union trustees; they are influenced heavily by Allen Dorfman, once a special consultant to the fund until he was convicted of accepting a $55,000 kickback from a borrower and went to prison for eight months. He was forced to sever his Teamster connections, but he still calls many shots...
...Teamster ties with the Mafia go way back. Nicholas P. Morrissey, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Joint Council 10 in Boston, observes, "Most people who come out of prison go into this kind of work [trucking, warehousing and longshoring]." Hoffa had friends in the Mob and indeed used them in his climb from the boss of Detroit's Local 299 to his election as the union's president in 1957. But Hoffa always retained a degree of independence of the gangsters...
...hand-picked successor but then became a rival, is said to show no such resistance. Indeed, he has left the 15 regional vice presidents pretty much alone, making them again the semiautonomous barons that they were before Hoffa began centralizing most of the power around himself. To veteran Teamster observers, that means an open season for the underworld and increasing Mafia penetration...
Shady Outlook. On the whole, though, the road ahead stretches straight and smooth for the union. Says Investigative Editor Jim Drinkhall, who has written many reports of Teamster shady dealings for Overdrive, an independent monthly trade publication: "Essentially, their idea is 'Who cares what they do as long as I get mine?' " Many employers do not care either; they regard the Teamsters as a good union to deal with because it keeps the members in line and has held wildcat strikes to a minimum...