 photo by MICHAEL PARRISH |
 NEWS STORY Hoffa Huffs The son of the legendary Teamsters leader blows through Portland and rolls over the press on his campaign for the union's top job. BY JOSH FEIT |
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Some pals of Jimmy Hoffa Jr. invited me to the airport last Thursday night. The frontrunner in this year's election for president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was flying into Portland to hold campaign rallies at Roadway Express on Swan Island and at the Milwaukie Elks Club. I was told Hoffa would sit down with me at the airport and answer a few questions. Hoffa did take the time to meet with me, but he didn't sit down, and he didn't answer any questions. 57-year-old Hoffa Jr., son of legendary Teamster's boss Jimmy Hoffa, is racking up frequent flyer miles and support by stirring up memories of his father in cities all over the country. Hoffa's two-day stop in Portland last week is particularly noteworthy because it's his opponent's hometown. Hoffa is running against underdog Tom Leedham, a Portland Teamster and the national vice president of the union's 400,000-member warehouse division. Driving out to the airport, I reviewed my questions: * How can Hoffa talk about cleaning up union corruption when his own 1996 campaign was found guilty of "campaign contribution irregularities" and fined $136,000? * Why should Oregon Teamsters vote for a lifelong lawyer who has never organized a factory rather than cast a vote for a local union leader like Leedham, who cut his teeth running the 1992 three-month Fred Meyer strike? * Why have Hoffa and his law firm defended anti-union employers such as Embassy Suites? * Why should Teamsters cast their votes for a candidate whose advisors and spokespeople include leaders from the corrupt Jackie Presser days of the 1980s--sketchy times that forced the Teamsters to relinquish autonomy to federal oversight? * What does he think about his dad's mysterious disappearance in 1975? * Did Hoffa like Jack Nicholson's portrayal of his dad in the Hollywood movie? I arrived at gate C5 at 8:15 pm and was met by four men with supersize handshakes, shoulders and waistlines. I was cautioned by one, 310-pound Walt LaChapelle--a construction worker and Teamster since 1961--not to ask about Hoffa Sr.'s disappearance. I took the advice and dropped the questions about dad. I might as well have dropped them all. Jimmy Hoffa Jr. was not interested in answering any questions. A steamroller of a man, Hoffa Jr. didn't even acknowledge my offer to sit down, choosing to stand tall and reel off a well-rehearsed string of sound bites. "I'm for unity!" "Tom Leedham has no credibility with members!" "I will beat him in his own state!" Particularly frustrating is Hoffa's unchallenged mantra that Portlander Leedham is unfit for office because no one has heard of him. Asked to elaborate on any of these points, Hoffa looked away, raised his hand like a traffic cop and said quietly, leaning on each word, "Just listen." He went on to quote President Lincoln, repeating three times, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Hoffa seemed genuinely annoyed that the interview didn't end with a period after each one of his pronouncements. His frustration peaked when I tried to read him a quote from The New York Observer that raised questions about his connection to the Jackie Presser days. He yanked the newspaper from my hands; the rest of my notes fell onto the carpet. "We don't respond to propaganda," he said. The interview was over. With my Radio Shack micro recorder and rumpled newspaper, I fetched my notebook from the floor, wondering what I could have done to engage Hoffa in a real conversation. Should I have raised my voice when Hoffa ignored my questions? Suggested grabbing a beer? Listening back to his monologue on my cassette during the ride home, I realized that there probably isn't going to be much of a chance to derail this juggernaut. He seems propelled by history to reclaim his father's seat. My guess is that Hoffa Jr. has the same approach to Teamster members as he does to reporters--lecturing in broad, sweeping terms about "restoring the pride." The strategy seems to be working. As we waited for Hoffa Jr. to arrive, LaChapelle, wearing a black T-shirt that broadcast "HOFFA" in simple white letters, told me about the glory days under "the old man." Hoffa's sound bites conjure up those memories while avoiding the reality of the corruption that typified those days. As that discarded New York Observer article asked: "Restore the pride? Pride in what, precisely? In the dirty deals his father made with leg breakers and killers? In the truck-leasing company his mother owned, which served as a conduit for payoffs to his father? In the reign of terror, which tolerated no dissent and no fair contests for any union position? In the squandering of workers' assets on real estate deals with con men and gangsters?" Hoffa doesn't have time to field those kinds of questions. He's too busy declaring victory in Oregon.
originally published August 5, 1998 |
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