Teaming Up on the Teamsters

Usually, when an editor says he got bombed last night, he means he had too much to drink. What Wesley Hills, 28, of Detroit's Teammate magazine meant was that a midnight explosion had ripped apart his tiny office.

That is quite an overwhelming reader response to a publication only two issues old--and one which reads as though it were put out by a bunch of truck drivers. Teammate, as it happens, is the monthly magazine of a bunch of truck drivers. In bareknuckle prose, it has been throwing straight jabs at the Teamsters Union hierarchy. The union officials, who are just filling in while Jimmy Hoffa finishes his jail sentence, are described as corrupt bosses and the "enemy within." The magazine has publicized alleged Mafia involvement in the misuse of pension funds and attacked dynastic policies in selecting local leaders.

Teammate Editor Hills, who learned investigative reporting on Detroit's now defunct Scope magazine, does not hesitate to charge the union with the bombing. Patent nonsense, reply union leaders. "If we were in the business of blowing up places, and we aren't any more," says one official, "we'd have gone for the valuable equipment."

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