The Boot for Jimmy

The rainy afternoon skies hovered in leaden gloom above the modernistic A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters building on Washington's 16th Street. James Riddle Hoffa, president-elect of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, scissored briskly up to the front entrance. A photographer asked him for just "one cheerful smile." Snapped Jimmy Hoffa cheerlessly: "Don't worry, kid. There'll be lots of them. Nothing has happened at all."

But it was about to happen just the same. The Teamsters, having been forewarned that they would be tossed out of the parent federation if Hoffa were elected president (TIME, Oct. 14), proved, by electing Jimmy and his pals, that they had no intention of cleaning their stables. Hopeful that the enormous Teamster economic power would bluff the A.F.L.-C.I.O. into backing down, Hoffa & Co. planned to ask the A.F.L-C.I.O. Executive Council for a year's probation. There was not a chance. For sitting at the head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. was 63-year-old George Meany, the stocky, onetime plumber's helper with a mind and heart as tough as cast-iron pipe. To Meany--and the executive council--the issue was clear: the Teamsters were dirty, they had fair warning, there was no backing down now.

Questions & Answers. The step was climactic, pricked with crucial questions. The Teamsters comprise the largest single union in the federation; its 1,400,000 members pay $840,000 a year in per capita dues to the A.F.L.-C.I.O.; its burly truck drivers can make or break strikes in almost all key industries, and the Teamster bosses had let the word get out that they might be tempted to get even with the unions that voted against them. A morass of tie-ups, a campaign of raids, could splinter, perhaps even destroy the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Yet George Meany and his executive council held firm. After 90 minutes of discussion with Hoffa and his general executive board, the council huddled in executive session for an equal period of time. At length, Jimmy Hoffa, cooling his heels in an outer office, was called in to hear the verdict: the Teamsters were suspended by a 25 to 4 vote (the four: representatives of the Teamsters, the scandal-tinged Bakery Workers, the powerful Carpenters, the Letter Carriers). Under George Meany's tough hand, a powerful majority had shown that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. would risk its own future to protect honest unions from creeping corruption. The suspension would be lifted only if the Teamsters cleared Hoffa and his pals from the union and permitted the federation to correct Teamster abuses; otherwise, the Council would recommend expulsion by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention. Grim and glum, Hoffa marched out.

Taps. His troubles were still multiplying. In Manhattan, a federal court ordered Hoffa to stand trial promptly on charges of perjury and wire tapping. And in Washington, 13 rank-and-file union members were awarded a preliminary injunction preventing Hoffa and his newly elected fellow officers from assuming their new jobs. If the plaintiffs win their suit and prove that the Hoffa gang was illegally elected, new elections, supervised by court-appointed officials, will probably be ordered. By that time, James Riddle Hoffa might not be available for candidacy.

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