Jimmy Hoffa
I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.
I've said consistently that no employer ever really accepts a union. They tolerate the unions. The very minute they can get a pool of unemployment they'll challenge the unions and try to get back what they call managements prerogatives, meaning hire, fire, pay what you want.Collection: Fire
I've told you before and I'll tell you again. The strong survive and the weak disappear. We do not intend to disappear.Collection: Strong
Don't let any man into your cab, your home, or your heart, unless he's a friend of labor.Collection: Home
In the old days all you needed was a handshake. Nowadays you need forty lawyers.Collection: Power
I may have my faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.Collection: History
There are simply no public figures today who so challenge the elite business and government establishment and so champion the working class as Jimmy Hoffa did almost daily and with arrogance.Collection: Class
Run from a knife and rush a gun.Collection: Running
To the best of my recollection, I must recall on my memory, I cannot rememberCollection: Memories
But to hear Kennedy when he was grandstanding in front of the McClellan Committee you might have thought I was making as much out of the pension fund as the Kennedys made out of selling whiskey.Collection: Mcclellan
In the ten years I was president of the Teamsters, I had raised the membership from eight hundred thousand to more than 2 million and made it the largest single labor union the world.Collection: Years
Rome wasn't built in a day, but man, did they get a break on the labor.Collection: Men
Hell, I'm not saying I'm an angel, but when it came to dirty tricks I couldn't hold a candle to the Irish Mafia.Collection: Dirty
Our rooms were bugged, our phones were tapped, and our lawyer's rooms were broken into and their files stolen. We finally had to hire armed guards with pistols to be able to maintain our records. It was hard to believe we weren't in Russia.Collection: Believe
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.Collection: Animal
You almost had to live through it to really know the gut ripping misery of the depression during the early thirties which led to labor's bloodiest and most violent days.Collection: Misery
He's not just the most powerful man in labor," Robert Kennedy had said in the wake of Hoffa's announcement; "he's the most powerful man in the country, next to the President.Collection: Country
I don't need a bodyguard.Collection: Needs
But because we are financially solid, because we do have an organization that is equipped to handle any situation that comes in front of us, we are successful in getting from the employers what are members want and need without strikes.Collection: Successful
We never had any silk sheets in our family...Collection: Sheets
They all know I'm back, very much back, and that I will be the general president again come hell or high water.Collection: Water
When you go to prison they forget it's your Constitution, too.Collection: Constitution
Sure, we loaned money to build hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. So what? Las Vegas borrowers were good customers.Collection: Vegas
Mob guys had muscle, and where in hell do you think employers got the tough guys when they wanted to break a strike?Collection: Thinking
From 1955 until 1965 Jimmy Hoffa was as famous as Elvis Presley. From 1965 until 1975 Jimmy Hoffa was as famous as the Beatles.Collection: Jimmy Hoffa
It has to be considered damned unusual that no other union was ever investigated.Collection: Unions
Power leads to more power, no matter what your racket, and not only were they rich and influential but they were smart as hell, too.Collection: Smart
When you run an organization like the Teamsters one man has to be the boss and run things.Collection: Running
More apparent to Teamster members than any moral lapses were the tangible gains that had been steadily realized under Hoffa since his advent to power.Collection: Lapses
A slab of bread "buttered" with lard and, if you were lucky, seasoned with salt and pepper, was a luxury.Collection: Luxury