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Hoffa himself, when he was pushing into New York in 1954, tried to undercut New York Teamster Thomas Hickey by offering trucking companies better terms than Hickey — at the expense of the Teamster rank and file. In several states, Hoffa permitted trucking firms, against drivers' protests, to save money by paying drivers an extra 1¼ or 1½ a mile in lieu of more expensive fringe benefits. A confidential memorandum from an Ohio trucking executive reports a conversation with George Maxwell, head of the Steel Truckers Employers Association. Says the memo, photostated by McClellan committee investigators: "George told me that in 1954 he made five separate deals with Hoffa concerning percentage pay rates [the percentage of the trucking fee that a company pays a driver who owns his own truck]. He had one company decreased from 74% to 70%, three companies decreased from 75% to 72%, and one company decreased from 80% to 72% . . . George further said that Hoffa is very tough in these open meetings, but you can talk to him in a closed, private session. That is the way in which most of the steel carriers operate."
Looking for Loopholes. Despite his "speaks for itself" record and all the attacks it has stirred up against him, Jimmy Hoffa is still cockily confident, brimful of big plans for the future, including an alliance of all land, water and air transport unions in the U.S.
Expulsion from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has increased Hoffa's power instead of denting it. The $840,000 a year that the Teamsters used to pay into the A.F.L.-C.I.O. treasury is now available for other uses. And expulsion left Hoffa free to raid the jurisdictions of A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions, which he has done gleefully.
The labor bill might trim Hoffa's power, especially if the Senate adopts the House bill's restrictions on blackmail picketing and secondary boycotts—longtime Teamster weapons. But with his lawyers already at work looking for loopholes, Hoffa is going to make every effort to go on behaving like Hoffa. Last week he finished buying control of the Miami National Bank so that he can use the bank to get around labor-bill controls on what he does with Teamster welfare-fund money. He plans to channel welfare-fund millions into Miami National and then distribute the money as bank loans and investments, exempt from labor-bill restrictions.
To cancel out any labor-bill ban on secondary boycotts, Hoffa is already setting timetables to rearrange Teamster contracts so that they will all expire at the same time. He plans to try to work out arrangements with other unions so that their contracts will run out at the same time as Teamster contracts. "This bill is going to bring on national bargaining," Hoffa predicted. "That's where those smart guys in Congress outsmarted themselves."
Vanishing Files. One potentially formidable roadblock to Jimmy Hoffa's plans is a three-member Board of Monitors, set up in early 1958 by Federal Judge F. Dickinson Letts to watch over Teamster affairs.