The Power to Paralyze

Teamster Top Dog James Riddle Hoffa is the nation's biggest labor union boss, but he has long hungered for one big bone that some other labor chiefs have. Unlike the Auto Workers' Walter Reuther or the Steelworkers' David McDonald, he cannot call an industry-wide strike because his 1,700,000-member union is divided into regions, with individual contracts, which expire at different times. Last week, soaking up the Miami sunbeams at a Teamster board meeting, Hoffa announced that he was clearing the road for an industry-wide contract by 1964.

Steadily, Hoffa has been signing standard three-year contracts for the Teamster regions, now has uniform terms covering 25 states and many of the major U.S. haulers. Contracts in a score more states come up for renewal during the next six months, and Hoffa will demand the same expiration date on each one: February 1964. Then, he will hold out for a nationwide pact.

That would give him power to paralyze the whole U.S. economy. But Hoffa promised to exercise that power like the true labor statesman that he is. "There just won't be a national strike," he said. "It isn't good business for the union." The guarantee was every bit as good as Jimmy Hoffa's word.

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