Need A Good Book About The Mob and The Teamster's Union

[ralph124c]

I would like to know more about the Teamster’s union’s connection with organized crime.
I know that James Hoffa had a lot of friends who were mob criminals, and that his successor (Frank Fitzsimmons) was likely deeply involved as well.
I’d appreciste some god books about this topic/
By the way, it is often alleged that Hoffa was murdered by the Mob-as he was (ostensibly) trying to regain the presidency of the union. Have there ever been any 'deathbed" confessions of any Mafia bigwigs about this?

[Diceman]

@ralph124c

Have there ever been any 'deathbed" confessions of any Mafia bigwigs about this?

There have been a few “confessions” over the years. However, none of them have ever lead to Hoffa’s remains.

[anson2995]

Aside from biographies of Hoffa, I can suggest “Devil’s Pact” by Duke Zeller. He was the longtime PR guy for the teamsters union. There are some other inside stories, mostly told by mobsters. The best of the bunch, IMO, are “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt – one of many that claims to reveal Hoffa’s fate – and “Crossing Hoffa” by Steven Harper.

Among the Hoffa biographies, I’d recommend “Out of the Jungle” by Thad Russell or “The Hoffa Wars” by Dan Moldea. The latter is probably out of print.

Beware of many purported Hoffa bios which are just sensationalized gangster stories.

[Perciful]

“I Heard You Paint Houses”, was good. This is what your looking for.

[ralph124c]

@anson2995

Aside from biographies of Hoffa, I can suggest “Devil’s Pact” by Duke Zeller. He was the longtime PR guy for the teamsters union. There are some other inside stories, mostly told by mobsters. The best of the bunch, IMO, are “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt – one of many that claims to reveal Hoffa’s fate – and “Crossing Hoffa” by Steven Harper.

Among the Hoffa biographies, I’d recommend “Out of the Jungle” by Thad Russell or “The Hoffa Wars” by Dan Moldea. The latter is probably out of print.

Beware of many purported Hoffa bios which are just sensationalized gangster stories.

Thank you-I picked up a copy of Zellar’s book-it is a fascinating read. Man, that union was corrupt!I mentioned it to my Dad-and he related a story from his younger days as a truck driver. Seems a driver for a liquor company was caught, stealing a case of scotch from a store. The owner was all set to prosecute, but then a Teamster’s union goombah had a “talk” with him-and the chastened shop owner was told that bad things could happen, if he persisted.
The case was dropped!

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

One thing you might want to dig up is a story I once saw in the NYT. They wrote that Hoffa let his mafia pals use Teamster pension money to finance all sorts of shady activity, but they paid back with interest. Later after the union was “cleaned up”, professional money managers managed the pension funds, and the returns were not nearly as good.

[ralph124c]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

One thing you might want to dig up is a story I once saw in the NYT. They wrote that Hoffa let his mafia pals use Teamster pension money to finance all sorts of shady activity, but they paid back with interest. Later after the union was “cleaned up”, professional money managers managed the pension funds, and the returns were not nearly as good.

One of the Mob-owned projects financed by the Teamster’s Union Pension Fund was a luxury resort in California, called La Costa.
I recall that this project sucked up a ton of money-was it profitable for the pension fund?
By about 1996, the Teamster’s had less than $4,000,000 in the bank (irrespective of the pension fund). Jackie Presser and his successor had done a good job of looting the union.