Not a cliffhanging Press Conference or one loaded with drama and accusations, but rather a typical press conference conducted by Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa in November 6, 1963 on the occasion of answering questions regarding the National Contract, a single contract for all Teamsters locals throughout the country, beginning in 1964.
Achievement of the objective would be a development of major significance in the labor-management field. It would lay the groundwork for a standardization of rates and wages in the burgeoning trucking industry, whose gross revenues last year reached $8.3 billion, or more than all American railroads combined. More important from the public’s point of view, such an agreement would vest unprecedented economic power the power to stage a nationwide strike against a major segment of the trucking industry in the hands of James Riddle Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. What do the Teamsters want in their first master agreement? Hoffa told reporters after the union strategy session Thursday that the Teamsters’ opening demand will be for a three-year agreement providing annual wage and fringe increases of 30 cents an hour for each member. That would cost the trucking industry $200 million a year. Hoffa acknowledged the industry would have to ask for increases in their freight rates to meet a bill of such magnitude. In all probability, however, the union’s demands will be scaled down in the give-and-take of bargaining. Negotiations are expected to get under way in earnest with industry representatives late in December, and probably will continue for months. Present agreements may have to be extended during the talks, Hoffa said.
A national agreement for his truck drivers is just one aspect of Hoffa’s strategy. His long-range goat is an alliance of all transportation unions, land, sea and air. “You cannot have a one-city strike any more, or a strike in just one kind of transportation,” he was quoted in 1960. “You have to strike them all.”.
Achievement of a nationwide intercity truck pact would culminate a Teamster campaign dating to 1934, when Farrell Dobbs, the old Socialist from Minneapolis, first broke the pattern of purely local agreements by winning a regional contract for midwestern truck drivers. Tempo of the effort quickened under Hoffa’s leadership, and as of November 6 the union had a dozen major regional contracts with expiration dates falling between February and October of 1964.
Here is the complete, unedited Press conference held by Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa from November 6, 1963.
