Who is Jimmy Hoffa?
James Riddle “Jimmy” Hoffa (14 February 1913 – 30 July, 1975?) was a noted American labor leader who 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 and was the son of a poor coal miner. His father died when he was young and Hoffa could not stay in school. Hoffa moved to Detroit to work in a warehouse. He was a natural leader who was upset at the mistreatment of workers, and in 1933, at the age of twenty, he helped organize his first strike of “swampers,” the workers who loaded and unloaded strawberries and other produce on and off delivery trucks. Union activities Hoffa rapidly advanced through the ranks of 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 ot
Jimmy Hoffa, born James Riddle Hoffa on 14 February 1913, was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the 1950s and 1960s. His son, James P. Hoffa, was president of the organization as of 2008. Raised in a working class family, Jimmy Hoffa dropped out of school in the ninth grade just before the Great Depression. He took a job unloading produce from railway cars, a position that sparked his initial interest in union activities. After being fired for fighting with a foreman, his next job was as a full time union organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Jimmy Hoffa assumed the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957, after his predecessor was convicted of bribery charges and sent to jail. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters wielded considerable power under the leadership of Jimmy Hoffa. Strikes and boycotts were common, but the union was known to use his organized crime connections to sway resistant employers. President John F. Kennedy was also conv
