Hoffa

...It was, "Too much, too fast...

...In fact, most international officers will not allow their own staff members—eggheads or otherwise—free access to the information and operation of all aspects of the union...

...He tells us that Hoffa never reneged on his promise of full cooperation and allowed James and his wife complete entry into the life of the Teamsters—to locked files, sealed cabinets, collective bargaining agreements, negotiation sessions, executive board meetings, staff caucuses, grievance procedure and pension investment meetings, and hotel suite bull sessions...

...Reviewed by Marc Karson "C\>r a study of union leadership and a union to gain the respect of labor scholars, three factors are indispensable...

...Ralph and Estelle James create a fascinating profile of Hoffa—working-class born...

...The James' good fortune can be more fully appreciated when it is realized that international unions—the socially-minded unions included—are highly restrictive of the freedom of movement within their organization of outside eggheads...

...The genesis of the James' book is somewhat unconventional...

...World Publishing Company...

...Hoffa refuses to conclude an agreement with one set of carriers ready to sign until his demands are accepted by the recalcitrant carriers...

...possessing superficial Marxist insights gained from Teamster leader and Trotskyite, Far-rell Dobbs...

...Mollenhoff's major thesis is that the accumulation of Teamster leadership power can lead only to evil...

...In collective bargaining the "leverage technique" is inherent in a common expiration date...

...The fact that the lawyer was working for the Illinois Federation of Labor, and not for Hoffa, did not deter Mollenhoff from including the chapter...

...Although centralized bargaining has decreased the power of local Teamster officials, Hoffa's successes in settling grievances for them "in a contest of power," not of arbitration, "helps explain why many local unions have gone along with his drive toward centralized bargaining...

...415 $6.50...

...having inexhaustible energy and leadership ability, but predatory and cunningly intuitive in his manipulation of people and situations...

...As for Teamster wages, however, the authors document the fact that Hoffa has come through for those for whom he bargains, which largely explains the loyalty that his "pork choppers" have to him...

...a congenital fighter at war with authority, unscrupulously making alliances with any groups of persons, however sordid or incongruous, who can aid him at any given moment to increase his power, impose his will, and secure his ends...

...Lest any reader feel deprived because he reads of sin and sensationalism but not of sex, there is a chapter titled, "A Labor Lawyer's Sex Set-Up...

...For reasons of self-survival, employers preferred centralized, area-wide bargaining that established uniform wages, hours, and working conditions, rather than individual contracts which increased the competition among carriers and financially squeezed the weaker ones...

...a powerhouse of instinctual drives almost completely untouched by the inhibiting restraints of law, religion, moral conflict, and social conscience...

...The James' book, however, goes far beyond explaining who Hoffa is...

...The researcher must get relevant and vital data from primary, not secondary, sources...

...But the rejection of the Teamsters (at least publicly) by most of the labor movement is particularly hypocritical when the leadership of many of the 200 international unions well know that they differ in degree but not in kind from the characteristics that mark the Teamsters— personal corruption, lack of internal democracy, materialistic philosophy, union self-centeredness, and apathetic membership...

...desirous of improving the material welfare of Teamsters in general, but frequently contemptuous of the dignity, and insensitive to the feelings, of others...

...In more than a hundred pages Ralph and Estelle James show that Hoffa used local treasuries and welfare and pension funds to make Teamster investments and loans not on the basis of prudent financing but rather to increase his prestige and influence...

...The Mollenhoff book, as earlier noted, is markedly inferior to the James' volume...

...Yet Hoffa's administration has seen the birth of a Teamster political education program akin to COPE and known as DRIVE (Democratic Republican Independent Voter Education...

...But perhaps political eduation and action, when carried out within a labor union, are not acceptable to Mollenhoff...

...James saw his opportunity and took it...

...Finally, he must strive for objectivity by controlling his conscious biases and trying not to project his own value system in interpreting the facts...

...It also has been traditional for the labor movement to be divided within itself...

...puritanical in his personal attitude toward sex, liquor, and tobacco but incredibly amoral in financial matters or in his use of means to further his ends...

...a Teamster at nineteen battling CIO locals in jurisdictional brawls on the Detroit streets during the depression Thirties...

...Learning that Hoffa was nearby negotiating a trucking agreement, James invited the Teamster leader to speak to his industrial relations class...

...the well-informed reader will find little that has not already been publicized in the way of corruption and crime among Teamster officials...

...Then, for unspecified reasons, the Teamster leader urged James to travel with him for six months and learn the "truth" about the Teamsters...

...As Mollenhoff says, his book "is based largely upon hearings and reports" from government sources...

...It is nothing new in American history for labor unions to have opposition from the press and government...

...One personal comment: In late 1960 I asked Sandy O'Brien, Chicago Teamster leader, his explanation of corruption within the Teamsters...

...Hoffa's talk produced six hours of hectic discussion...

...Part of Hoffa's success in collective bargaining and in organizing lies in his use of an effective method known as "leverage techniques...

...His answer was laconic and incisive...

...It answers the more important question of why—why Hoffa has succeeded in increasing Teamster membership to one and a half million, in securing improved trade agreements, and in maintaining the loyalty of the rank and file in spite of the opposition of government, business, press, and public opinion...

...These three factors alone explain why economic professors Ralph and Estelle James' book will secure a permanent place in labor history literature as the definitive work on the nature of James R. Hoffa and the operation of America's largest union, and why news reporter Clark Mollenhoff's book will have momentary, popular appeal to those who require and enjoy anti-labor material and views...

...The researcher must be professionally skilled in the area of his study so that he can understand the data...

...In arriving at these answers, the Jameses describe the economics of the over-the-road trucking industry and illustrate that Hoffa's rise to power was facilitated by the peculiar nature of the trucking industry—a competitive industry of small employers, high labor costs, and low profits...