Jimmy Hoffa Essay

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JIMMY HOFFA Former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa was the controversial leader of the Teamsters Union from 1957 to 1971. He was a tough negotiator at the bargaining table, and even tougher in a street brawl. Hoffa was violent and ruthless, and he had a cozy relationship with the mob, but he made the union so powerful that it was eventually able to control the wages and working conditions of the entire trucking industry. The union rank-and-file loved Jimmy, and forgave his excesses, because as one member recalled, "Hoffa did steal from us, but he also gave us a hell of a lot” (Padgett, 2012). While working men and women have long known the value of a dollar—it is a lesson well taught to one who labors for a living—it has taken a long, long time to teach employers the value of a human being, and in many cases has not yet been successfully taught. Few give thought to what happens to displaced workers, but they can analyze to the penny what the profits will be.” –James R. Hoffa Humble Beginnings Jimmy Hoffa was born on February 14, 1913. His birth name was Jimmy Riddle Hoffa. Raised in Brazil, Indiana, Hoffa was the third of four children of a coal driller and a domestic worker. When he was seven, his dad died and a few years later the family moved to the poverty-stricken west side of Detroit (Unknown, 2012). He was keenly aware that his father’s death was directly related to the working conditions on the job in the town’s coal mines and never forgot the pain and hardships it caused. Hoffa began taking on odd jobs and continued this practice when he moved with his mother and three siblings to Detroit in 1924 (A Worker's Hero, 2012). Jimmy dropped out of school at 14 to work, spending his teen years unloading box cars and trucks. By age 19, he was working at Kroger Grocery’s produce warehouse where, despite being on call from 12-14 hours, he and the other

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