James Riddle Hoffa was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971. He is notorious for his alleged ties to organized crime and for his disappearance under mysterious circumstances in 1975.From an early age, Hoffa was a union activist: he became an important regional figure with the IBT by his mid-20s. By 1952, he was the national vice-president of the IBT and between 1957 and 1971 he was its general president. Hoffa secured the first national agreement for teamsters' rates in 1964 with the National Master Freight Agreement. He played a major role in the growth and the development of the union, which eventually became the largest by membership in the United States, with over 2.3 million members at its peak, during his terms as its leader.Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, a connection that continued until his disappearance. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, along with mail and wire fraud in 1964 in two separate trials. He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to 13 years.








Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.