Who was Jimmy Hoffa? Read on to find out

James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa  (February 14, 1913- on or about July 30, 1975) was a noted American labor leader with ties to the Mafia. As the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hoffa wielded considerable influence.

He is also well-known in popular culture for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his still-unexplained disappearance and presumed death.

Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a poor coal miner. His father died when he was young and Hoffa could not stay in school. Hoffa moved to Lake Orion, Michigan to work in a warehouse. He was a natural leader who was upset at the mistreatment of workers. In 1933, age twenty, he helped organize his first strike of "swampers", the workers who loaded and unloaded strawberries and other produce on and off delivery trucks.

The Teamsters union, which organized truckers throughout the Midwest and then nationwide through skillful use of 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.

Hoffa took over the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957, when his predecessor, Dave Beck, was convicted on bribery charges and imprisoned. Hoffa worked tirelessly 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 the United States government and business as a strike involving all transportation systems would be devastating for the national economy.

For all the benefits that Hoffa and some Teamsters delivered for over-the-road drivers, other Teamsters locals did little more than sign sweetheart deals that made union officers rich and left workers poor. In industries such as garment delivery, organized crime took over locals, and then used their power to strike, bringing the entire industry either under the Mafia's control or at least vulnerable to blackmail.

Hoffa had a working relationship with these racketeers, some of whom had played an important part in his election as General President of the Teamsters. Several Teamster chapter presidents were convicted for mob related crimes but often would continue serving as union leaders, such as Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano in New Jersey. Cleveland Corn-Sugar War survivor Moe Dalitz and Allen Dorfman bankrolled many mob casinos, hotels and other construction projects from the Teamsters pension fund.

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

Ultimately, Hoffa was not nearly as beholden to the Mob as to his successor and longtime crony Frank Fitzsimmons, who avoided imprisonment because of death due to cancer. While Hoffa was a brilliant tactician who knew how to play one employer off against another and who used the union's power to rationalize the industry by driving out weaker employers, "Fitz" was content to gather the other benefits of high office. 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 high standards that Hoffa had achieved.

Hoffa's son, James P. Hoffa, is the Teamsters' current leader; his daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer, currently serves as an Associate Circuit Court Judge in St. Louis, Missouri.