Jimmy Hoffa Ruffles CEO’s Feathers Over Employees' Decision to Resist Teamsters

John Powell — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:49:16 -0500

What do union bosses do when independent-minded employees refuse to succumb to union organizing pressure?

Well, it turns out Jimmy Hoffa’s solution is to write a letter to the president of the companies he is trying to organize in order to smear those companies.

Teamsters boss Hoffa did just that in writing to CEO Moir Lockhead once FirstGroup employees began showing admirable resistance to the union's thuggish organizing tactics.

Workers at a Hodgkins, Illinois busing facility – owned by the UK-based FirstGroup – are saying “no” to the Teamsters’ unionization hopes, but union bosses don't like hearing "no" from independent-minded employees.

Hoffa's letter underscores the problems with so-called “neutrality agreements,” since FirstGroup entered into such an agreement with the Teamsters union in order to get the union off its back. Neutrality agreements give unions sweeping access to employees’ personal information and ban secret-ballot elections, since the employer agrees to support a union’s attempt to organize its workforce.

Hoffa’s letter shows that anything short of unyielding assistance to lock employees up in forced unionism by employers is unacceptable to union officials.

In a similar Right to Work Foundation-aided case in Batavia, Illinois, another union with a neutrality pledge refused to go away from a FirstGroup facility – just like what is happening here.