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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 4, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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The Teamsters were born in struggle. That's the union's heritage

By Milt Neidenberg
Retired Teamster

For more than 60 years the government has carried on a relentless and systematic attack on the Teamsters, aimed at wrecking this powerful and strategic union.

It began at the time of the first trucking strike in 1934. That walkout, which was led by socialists, led to the historic Minneapolis Teamsters strike--and ultimately to organizing hundreds of thousands of over-the-road drivers in one giant union.

During those turbulent days when truckers shed their blood and made heroic sacrifices to build their union, the government was determined to destroy them. The government failed.

JIMMY HOFFA'S ROLE

Jimmy Hoffa, a young union organizer from Detroit, was sent to Minneapolis. He assisted the strike leaders, Farrell Dobbs and other members of the Socialist Workers Party. Later, right before World War II, Hoffa broke with Dobbs and other leading Teamster organizers. He had joined forces with Dave Beck, who became Teamster president and who was an avowed enemy of the socialist leaders of the Minneapolis Teamsters.

Hoffa began to feel the wrath of the government beginning in the mid-1950s. He and Beck were hounded by the anti- labor, racist Sen. John J. McClellan of Arkansas, who headed the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations. Robert Kennedy was the committee's counsel.

After Beck was jailed, Hoffa became president of the Teamsters, which then had some 1.7 million members.

It was unfortunate that Hoffa continued to run the union from the top down. He was popular with the rank and file and could have easily instituted democratic reforms and remained president. He hurt his own efforts to fight the government attacks, which continued relentlessly.

An unforgettable episode took place at the time of the "get-Hoffa-get-the-Teamsters" Kennedy hearings in 1958. Thousands of union members pledged to drive their trucks to Washington, surround the capitol and shut down the city in defense of Hoffa and their union.

But Hoffa said no. He feared unleashing the power of the workers more than he feared jail.

In 1960 John F. Kennedy was elected president. He appointed his brother Robert Kennedy attorney general, and Robert Kennedy created a "get Hoffa squad."

The attorney general had his brother's ear--and he had at his disposal the same forces that had already been used to jail Beck: the Justice Department, the General Accounting Office, agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Departments of the Treasury and of Labor, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and narcotics agents.

The Teamsters needed the labor movement's support. But George Meany, head of the newly formed AFL-CIO, used the corruption issue to throw the Teamsters out.

At Hoffa's trial, the jury deadlocked on corruption. Instead Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and sentenced to eight years.

It took nine years and over $12 million to finally jail Hoffa. He was later executed CIA-style.

The government never fully investigated his death. It recently closed the case.

A PROUD HISTORY

Hoffa's greatest goal was to create a National Master Freight Agreement--one contract covering all drivers who delivered goods coast to coast.

There would be virtually no non-union employers left. There would be uniform wages and benefits. Most important, all trucking and freight company contracts would expire at the same time.

Imagine the power of nearly 2 million workers on strike.

The government understood the repercussions all too well. To make sure this would never happen, it tightened the screws on the internal life of the union's rank and file.

Since Hoffa's death, the government has imposed greater controls over the Teamsters. Hoffa would turn over in his cemented grave if he knew his son was cooperating with the government to divide the Teamsters and use the corruption issue to get elected president.

The government, the news media, labor consultants and most academicians who teach labor history have maligned the Teamsters. The public has been saturated with an image of corrupt, undemocratic labor bosses prone to criminal activities.

This image has to be rooted out. The Teamsters union is made up of 1.4 million rank-and-file members. It is multinational. Women are more and more participating in the life of their union.

The "New Teamsters," led by President Ron Carey, and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union are in an excellent position to educate the rank and file about their true heritage:

The magnificent days of the Minneapolis mass strike that built the Teamsters union. The heroic struggles against the government, the courts and the cops that actually shut down that city. The drive to organize warehouse workers and over- the-road drivers into one powerful union that the government has feared from that day on.

And the indisputable fact that the Teamsters who led that great strike were revolutionary socialists.

With that kind of history--and now with a glorious new chapter opened by the victory at UPS--the rank and file have every reason to be proud to be Teamsters.

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