What Passes for Labor History (Tentacles of Power: The Story of Jimmy Hoffa, by Clark R. Mollenhoff; Hoffa and the Teamsters: A Study of Union Power, by Ralph C. James and Estelle Dinerstein James)
Widick, B. J.
TENTACLES OF POWER: THE STORY OF JIMMY HOFFA, by Clark R. Mollenhoff. New York: World. 415 pp. $6.50. HOFFA AND THE TEAMSTERS: A STUDY OF UNION POWER, by Ralph C. James and Estelle...
...The authors do not mention that the biggest banquet ever seen around Detroit was given for Hoffa, in 1956, with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler officials and other members of the Establishment present...
...In the 1930s, the Jameses tell us...
...The Jameses offer the fantastic the ory that Hoffa is the product of "Trotskyism...
...Van Nostrand...
...But there is a basis of sorts for the Jameses' theory...
...This new stand of Hoffa's in the 1950s was, however, only an attempt by Harold Gibbons and other advisers to change Hoffa's image from a union executive who talked about his "labor business" to a militant labor leader...
...Nor do they analyze the significance of the Wall Street Journal's repeated surveys and articles which speak of employers' fears of the effect Hoffa's possible retirement may have on labor relations in the trucking industry...
...There is a basic and obvious difference between the concept of "leverage power" of over-the-road drivers which was developed by Dobbs and Ray Dunne, and Hoffa's power concept...
...And if Hoffa had reverted back to the old methods of his early slugging days, how could a decent citizen look on, without trying to protect people from beatings and gunfire...
...Clark R. Mollenhoff's book reduces the problem of corruption in American society and the labor movement to the level of a TV script with Mollenhoff cast in the role of a journalistic Elliot Ness...
...In addition, the Nashville Tennessean had just hired a new editor—John Seigenthaler, who in 1961 and 1962 had served as an administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy...
...But it is hard to say how much this growth was due to the expansion of large companies and how much to the efforts of locals...
...Hoffa has an intuitive Marxist picture of the capi talist economy: automation—overpro duction — unemployment — more auto mation — more overproduction — more unemployment—and so it goes...
...These questions need probing before a sound appraisal of Hoffa can be made...
...430 pp...
...Occasionally the book led me to wonder where reportage ends and fantasy begins...
...The authors fail to give a critical analysis of his long-time dalliance with the Republican party, his anti-strike philosophy and repeated attacks on "strike happy" Walter Reuther and the UAW, or Hoffa's violent blasts against Communism and the student peace movement...
...How did they fare under Hoffa's leadership...
...In the 1950s Jimmy Hoffa suddenly began to refer to the importance of the over-the-road drivers and their strategic role in the Teamsters Union —a concept upheld by Farrell Dobbs and his Trotskyist colleagues in Minneapolis in the 1930s...
...For example: "As recently as 1962, I heard him [Hoffa] order the beating of a man 3000 miles away, and on another occasion I heard him instruct his cadre on precisely how to ambush non-union truck drivers with gunfire—to frighten them, not to kill...
...These incidents supposedly happened at a time when Hoffa told everyone that he was under constant F.B.I...
...Hoffa sat at Dobbs' feet and learned the tools of his trade...
...With over 150,000 union contracts in the United States, most of which include automatic wage increases, how great is the difference between Hoffa's achievements and those of other labor leaders...
...The author does not concede the legitimate function of trade unions like the Teamsters, and he seems to be unaware that most of its members are ordinary Americans...
...The authors make out a strong case for Hoffa's ability at the bargaining table by limiting their analysis to his impact on truck drivers' wages and comparing these to wage raises in other industries...
...In a chapter entitled "Trotskyist Impact on Hoffa," the au thors argue that Farrell Dobbs, Trot skyite leader, and one-time Teamsters Union organizer, provides...
...He hardly criticizes the trucking industry and the American political system of favors and deals...
...editorial support in the trial area...
...Hoffa's "power" concept involved two elements totally alien to Trotskyist practice and theory: the big trucking interests and underworld allies...
...surveillance and that his phone was being tapped...
...the key to understanding the emergence of James Hoffa and the origins of many of his methods and beliefs...
...HOFFA AND THE TEAMSTERS: A STUDY OF UNION POWER, by Ralph C. James and Estelle Dinerstein James...
...The Trotskyists based this concept on working-class strength and solidarity...
...One might consider the three major cab drivers' elections lost in recent years because Hoffa backed such notorious figures as Joe Glimco of Chicago, and Hoffa's brutal but unsuccessful raids on the Communications Workers of America...
...The Trotskyists have certainly not laid claim to Hoffa...
...Mollenhoff writes, "The Justice Department made the decision to seek an indictment in Nashville to avoid the Detroit political jungle that Hoffa knew so well...
...Might the Teamsters not have been even more successful, had they not been handicapped by the effort to defend Hoffa's record...
...Professor Ralph C. James' and Estelle Dinerstein James' book might have passed for a good scholarly spoof, were it not meant to be a serious anal ysis of a major union...
...The Teamsters' membership has certainly grown in recent years...
...Mollenhoff gives the misleading im pression that many unions are simply rackets and fails to convey the com plexity of trade unionism as a social institution...
...TENTACLES OF POWER: THE STORY OF JIMMY HOFFA, by Clark R. Mollenhoff...
...his villain is Hoffa...
...Mollenhoff unwittingly supports Hoffa's argument which is in part the basis for his appeal to the Supreme Court...
...The authors offer no documentation for this distortion of Hoffa's life and beliefs, and of American labor history...
...6.95...
...That was an assurance of...
...A well-rounded book would have to deal with Hoffa's principle of the "fast buck," his views on the "labor business," and evaluate Hoffa's success in organizing, handling funds, and bargaining...
...Not even his worst enemies in Detroit have ever accused him of such stupidity and carelessness...
...But Hoffa is also the president of over 1,000,000 Teamsters who are not over-the-road or strategic drivers...
...For over twenty years Hoffa has received remarkable accolades from big business in Detroit and throughout the Midwest...
Vol. 13 • May 1966 • No. 3
