Big Plans

James Riddle Hoffa, ninth vice president (of eleven) of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is a tough, resilient man who can slide on his face in a stable and come out smelling like honeysuckle. Three weeks ago he defied what looked like an open-and-shut case against him to win acquittal on charges that he tried to plant an agent on the staff of the Senate's McClellan committee investigating labor racketeering (TIME, July 29). Last week he turned up cockily for a San Francisco meeting of the Teamsters' constitution revision committee, there unloaded some of the grand schemes that he hopes will shape the future glory of his union and his own powers.

Playing Nasser to the Farouk of discredited Teamster President Dave Beck (Hoffa will almost certainly take over the teamster reins at the union's Miami Beach convention next month), Jimmy Hoffa allowed that he is considering a plan to combine all the nation's transport unions (aviation, trucking, shipping, railroading) into one council. Said he: "You can't have a one-city strike any more, or a strike in just one kind of transportation. You have to strike them all."

Even before Hoffa sang his melody, the same theme was batted out by none other than Harry Bridges, Red-lining boss of the West Coast International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, and a dedicated enemy of George Meany's A.F.L.-C.I.O. (the C.I.O. ousted Bridges and his union long ago). Crowed Bridges: "There's one thing I know. If the Teamsters and the two dock unions [i.e., his own and the East Coast's International Longshoremen's Association, also ousted] got together, they'd represent more economic power than the combined A.F.L.-C.I.O. They are so concentrated. An economic squeeze and pressure can be exerted that puts any employer in a very tough spot--and furthermore, puts the U.S. Government on a tough spot. If the A.F.L.-C.I.O. meets us head on, we'd knock the stuffings out of them."

Bridges, who already has a death grip on Hawaii's economy by his control of the docks and the plantation workers, then added what may yet be the result of Jimmy Hoffa's muscle-flexing: "Hoffa is too tough for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to handle. They can't keep him in that league."

Will Hoffa get himself and his big (1,400,000 members) union kicked out of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.? He seems to be headed for just that despite his insistence that he wants to work his reforms within the parent organization. For in closed sessions with his constitution revision committee, Hoffa is solidifying his position with an attempt to undercut the powers of the Teamsters' four regional conference bosses, thus piling more power on the presidency.

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