No union has been so often investigated and exposed as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. As far back as the 1950s, it was dissected by the Senate McClellan committee—which later branded it a "hoodlum empire"—and thrown out of the AFL-CIO as a pariah unfit to live in the house of labor. Since then, it has been the target of endless grand-jury investigations and many exposes of Teamster-Mafia deals, and some of its officers have been jailed; James R. Hoffa ran the union from a cell in Lewisburg federal penitentiary between 1967 and 1971. Now Hoffa's disappearance and presumed murder have focused new attention on the giant union, leading to one clear—if dismaying—conclusion: the decades of exposes and cleanup attempts have accomplished next to nothing. The Teamsters go rolling along, more powerful and perhaps more corrupt at the top than ever.
Long Reach. Mass unemployment is causing many Teamster locals to lose dues-paying members, but overall the union is still growing. It is the nation's largest (2.2 million members), richest and most aggressive labor organization, with a stop-or-go hold over deliveries of everything from automobiles to bread. Over-the-road, long-distance truck drivers are still the well-paid Teamster elite (average salary: $20,000), but the union has also largely fulfilled its boast to organize "everything aboveground on wheels." It represents drivers of almost every imaginable vehicle from ice cream trucks to hearses.
Moreover, the union is almost daily extending its reach into scores of manufacturing and service industries that have little if anything to do with trucking. Expulsion from the AFL-CIO freed the union of the federation's jurisdictional boundaries; its organizers go after almost everyone who earns a paycheck, sometimes extending their efforts to shops that have only three or four workers. Last year the Teamsters participated in a third of the 9,000 representation elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, far more than any other union, and won about half—a solid record.
Teamsters today are almost literally everywhere. They include brewers in Memphis, drawbridge operators in New York City, pipeline workers in Alaska, telephone answering-service employees in Boston. In Chicago, Teamster locals take up two full columns in the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory; they represent armored-car drivers, newspaper deliverers, gas-station employees, airline stewardesses and meat packers. The city's Local 727 goes by the somewhat unbelievable official name of "The Auto Livery, Chauffeurs, Embalmers, Funeral Directors, Apprentice Ambulance Drivers and Helpers, Taxi Cab Drivers, Miscellaneous Garage Employees, Car Washers, Greasers, Polishers and Wash Rack Attendants Local." In Michigan recently, state police sergeants and lieutenants voted for Teamster affiliation—and got it. In California, the Teamster net covers scientists, nurses, firemen, even district attorneys.