Grab for Power

The Teamsters convention in Miami Beach last week began like a summer shivaree. Delegates pinned on badges, pumped hands, paraded conga-fashion through the Deauville Hotel lobby behind a red-coated jazz band. They packed hotel dining rooms in the early evening and took their trade to Collins Avenue strip joints as the night sluiced tin. They crowded into the Miami Beach exhibition hall for a $25,000 one-night Teamster spectacular, featuring George Gobel, Mimi Benzell and ten chorus girls. They had a wonderful time. And they were had.

One among the 2,200 delegates had come to Miami with more on his mind than girls and giggle water. That man was testy, arrogant James Riddle Hoffa, 48, boss of the 1,700,000-member union and maverick of the U.S. labor movement.

Hoffa flew in with his wife* and three goals: to clear his clouded claim to the Teamster presidency, which he has held "provisionally" under a 1958 federal court order; to centralize union authority firmly in his own muscular hands; to broaden the brotherhood's charter and set the Teamsters free to organize anyone from airline stewardesses to zoo keepers. By week's end, Hoffa accomplished all three.

Pay Raises & Pensions. Most tedious task on the agenda was ratification of 118 118 constitutional amendments, a marathon polling performance that took two days and a four-hour night session. As constitution-committee chairman, Hoffa had dictated the changes. As convention chairman, he conducted the loud ceremony of their approval. With one hand on his gavel and the other on switches that controlled floor microphones, the Teamster boss directed his delegates through 92 pages of "reform." Among the amendments: P:A Hoffa pay raise from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, plus unlimited expenses, making him labor's highest-paid leader. There were more modest raises for vice presidents ($500 more a month) and trustees ($300 more a month). P:Deletion of a clause barring ex-convicts from becoming union members. A monthly dues increase of $1 per member, plus an increase from 40-c- to $1 in the per capita assessment paid by locals; the raise will provide $4,000,000 for the Teamsters' pension plan and $8,000,000 for Hoffa's war chest.

P: Removal of Teamster headquarters from Washington to Detroit, ostensibly to improve working conditions, actually to make it more difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute Hoffa, who will be on his home ground.

Out of Order. Sweating under pink and white spotlights in the Deauville's Napoleon Room, corporal-sized (5 ft. 5 in., 170 Ibs.) Jimmy Hoffa left no doubt about who was top man. But convinced that 150 federal agents were in Miami to observe the show, Hoffa went through the motions of minding his manners. "Never," observed one follower with a straight face, "have I witnessed a chairman that has allowed more democracy to creep in." No fewer than 42 union lawyers stood by to give on-the-spot advice, and Hoffa himself was careful to give adequate time to the tiny handful of insurgents. He gaveled them down only rarely with a curt "You're out of order, Brother." Said one delegate: "He can give you goose pimples the way he uses that word brother. He can make you feel like he's your kin, or he can make you break out in a cold sweat." Four movie cameras recorded each man and motion. When one delegate protested that he could not see Hoffa for the cameras, Jimmy explained they were "to satisfy the requirements of any litigation that may come about trying to set aside this convention." When the delegate protested further that each camera had two crewmen, the Teamsters--no strangers to -featherbedding--hooted him down.

After the constitutional amendments, the convention turned to the formality of elections. Bucking token opposition, Hoffa was swept in for another five-year term as president. William Presser, whose conviction for destroying union records subpoenaed by the McClellan committee had been upheld earlier in the week by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, was named a trustee. Incumbent Trustees Frank Ma-tula (convicted of perjury) and Ray Cohen (under indictment for defrauding the union) were returned to office.

"A Dopey Irishman." Everything added up to a brazen exercise of Hoffa muscle. And there were some behind the badges in Miami Beach last week who worried that their boss showed an unhealthy overconcern for power and praise. When a Baltimore Sun cartoon depicted Hoffa lighting a firecracker under other labor leaders while Bobby Kennedy stood helplessly by. Hoffa was vainly delighted, requested the original from Sun Cartoonist Richard Q. Yardley. When an assistant questioned a decision, Hoffa snapped: "I got a lot of faults, but I've never been wrong." Then the Teamster boss paraded a troop of backslappers before the microphone to praise himself and his union. John Roosevelt, F.D.R.'s youngest son, who serves the Teamsters as an investment counselor, piously hoped Hoffa would escape "continual harassment by certain agencies of the Government." Joseph Curran, president of the National Maritime Union, demanded that the Teamsters be readmitted to the A.F.L.-C-I.O. "Even a mouse can help a lion," squeaked Curran, leader of only 40,000 seamen.

Hoffa let it be known that he was more than willing to return to the house of labor; the only obstacle, said he, was "that dopey, thick-headed Irishman," A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany. To Meany, and even to such friendly A.F.L.-C.I.O. leaders as Walter Reuther ("Reuther is not stupid like Meany"), Hoffa threw down a challenge. Either he would be taken back on his own terms within 18 months or he would form his own federation. Few who heard Hoffa doubted his determination; he had already defied the U.S. Government and forced Jack Kennedy to swallow a campaign cry ("I am not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy Hoffa still free"). In Miami, Hoffa had gathered all the power he needed to carry out his threat. If he did, it would surely touch off one of the worst labor struggles in U.S. history.

*Slight, grey-blonde Josephine Poszywak Hoffa, 43, served coffee, led a conga line, captivated Teamster wives. "She's a doll,".said one, "with no airs." Mrs. Hoffa also revealed her formula for 24 years of happy marriage: "Don't nag him. If he's good to you, has a good job, and is doing what he wants to do, just be grateful."

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