The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa

By Steven Stanley

Who was Jimmy Hoffa?

• Born James Riddle in Brazil, Indiana on Feb. 14, 1913

• Dropped out of High School in the 9th grade right before the Great Depression

• Began to work at the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company for 32 cents an hour in 1929.

• Here he would meet some of his future leaders in the labor union called “The Teamsters”

The beginnings of Hoffa’s union

• in the spring of 1931, after two workers were fired for going to a food cart for their midnight dinner, Hoffa and his men acted.

• Hoffa called for a work stoppage just as trucks loaded with Florida strawberries pulled into the warehouse.

• Kroger management Faced with the need to get the perishable cargo into refrigerators quickly agreed to meet with the new leaders

The results of the Kroger strike

• After several days of negotiating, Hoffa and his aides had a union contract.

• It included a raise of 13 cents an hour, the guarantee of at least a half a day's pay per day, a modest insurance plan, and of course, recognition of the union.

• The new leaders soon applied for and received a charter as Federal Local 19341 of the American Federation of Labor.

After the Strike• Hoffa was fired the following year after a fight

with a plant foreman.

• Hoffa next landed a job as a full time union organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters(IBT).

• He took the Kroger union with him into the IBT where its membership was absorbed into Local 299.

The International Brotherhood ofTeamsters

• The Teamsters union organized truckers & firefighters, first throughout the Midwest and then nationwide.

• It skillfully used quickie strikes, secondary boycotts and other means of leveraging union strength at one company to organize workers and win contract demands at others.

• The union also used less lawful means to bring some employers into line as well.

The IBT under Hoffa• Hoffa took over the presidency of the Teamsters in

1957, when his predecessor, Dave Beck, was convicted on bribery charges and imprisoned.

• Hoffa worked to expand the union and in 1964 succeeded in bringing virtually all North American over-the-road truck drivers under a single national master freight agreement.

• Hoffa then pushed to try to bring the airlines and other transport employees into the union.

• This was of great concern to many as a strike involving all transport systems would be devastating for the national economy

The investigation of Hoffa

• Both President John F. Kennedy and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson put pressure on Hoffa through John's brother Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, attempting to investigate his activities and disrupt his ever-growing union.

• The Kennedys were sure that Hoffa had pocketed a great deal of union money.

• Having expelled the Teamsters in the 1950s, the AFL-CIO also disliked Hoffa and aided the Democrats in their investigations.

The Kennedy brothers & Hoffa

• The Kennedy brothers, Robert and John, were both enemies of Hoffa and despised his work, especially during the country's postwar movement against unionizing.

• Robert Kennedy believed he was a menace to society and would destroy him at all costs.

• The Kennedy brothers and Hoffa had a war going on between them for many years.

Robert F. Kennedy’sHoffa group

• When Robert Kennedy became Attorney General, he established a group, called “the Hoffa group” which worked inside the Justice Department, to watch and collect information about Hoffa and his men.

• Their full time job was to get Hoffa. • They received their biggest break when Edward Grady

Partin who was in jail at the time awaiting trial for embezzlement of union funds and kidnapping charges against him, decided, after many years of dirty work for the IBT, that he would work as an informant for the Kennedy administration

• Partin was a close associate of Hoffa for approximately five years.

Conviction of Hoffa

• In 1964 Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and sentenced eight years in prison. In addition, he was later found guilty for fraud and conspiracy and received another five years.

• In 1967, after all his appeals were exhausted he was sent to federal prison at Lewisburg, PA.

Jail Life• Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano a friend of Hoffa, as

well as a very influential mafia figure who controlled one of the most corrupt locals' in the country happened to be serving time the same as Hoffa.

• Provenzano was viewed as a big brother to Hoffa, which ultimately provided him with protection.

• These two men had each other's back. When Provenzano became paralyzed with stomach ailments, Hoffa never thought twice about arguing to have officials provide him with needed medical attention, But unfortunately their relationship later deteriorates because of bad business deals.

Hoffa’s Release• Hoffa had planned to finish his sentence and then

take back his seat as president of the union.• However On December 23, 1971, Hoffa was

released when President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to time served on the condition he not participate in union activities for 10 years.

• Hoffa was planning to sue to invalidate that restriction in order to reassert his power over the Teamsters when he disappeared on July 30, 1975

Hoffa's Disappearance

• On July 30th, 1975 things did not start off well for Hoffa, when New Jersey mob leader Tony "jack" Giacalone and Tony "pro" Provenzano, the same fellow Teamster that had been in prison with Hoffa stood him up at the luncheon meeting in Michigan, that they were supposed to have.

• This indicates that Hoffa had fallen out of favor with some nasty people, in the mob and in his own Union.

• At 2:15 p.m. Hoffa phoned his wife Josephine, telling her that no one showed up for his meeting. This was the last time Hoffa was heard from his wife

• Hoffa was pronounced legally dead in 1982.

Who did it

• After talking to many people, it was discovered that Hoffa had many enemies. At the top of the list, suspects included Russell Bufalino, Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano & two Hoffa cronies, Thomas Andretta, Gabriel Briguglio and Salvador Briguglio,

• There wasn’t enough evidence to charge any of these people, but they all wound up in prison for other crimes.

Pros & Cons

Pros• Jimmy Hoffa was a very ambitious

guy and if he had succeeded in uniting the airlines and other transport employees into the union. This was of great concern to many as a strike involving all transport systems would be devastating for the national economy

Cons• The deregulation of the trucking

industry pushed by Edward Kennedy and others during Fitzsimmons' tenure eventually destroyed much of what Hoffa had won for his members under the National Master Freight Agreement by making it much harder to maintain the standards Hoffa had achieved.

Closing Remarks

• Since the mysterious disappearance Over a quarter of a century ago of James Riddle Hoffa, this case still remains unsolved, however this mystery is not a who-did-it. All the likely suspects are known(Russell Bufalino, Anthony Provenzano, Thomas Andretta, Gabriel Briguglio and Salvador Briguglio), and their motives are well documented. The question is: Where? What exactly did they do to Jimmy Hoffa, and where did they dispose of his body?

Sites used

• http://crimemagazine.com/06/mobpresidentnixon,0205-6.ht

• http://www.coverups.com/hoffa.htm• http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall05/slewis/

Ch2.html• http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/

notorious_murders/famous/jimmy_hoffa/1.html Book• Arthur A. Sloane, Hoffa, MIT Press, 1992.