James P. Hoffa took office as General President of the 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union in 1999. One of the largest and fastest-growing unions in the country, the Teamsters Union represents workers in virtually every sector of the U.S. economy. Hoffa grew up on picket lines and in union meetings. He is the only son of James R. Hoffa, the legendary former General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On his 18th birthday, Hoffa received his own union card and was sworn in by his father.
Prior to becoming Administrative Assistant to Teamsters Joint Council 43 in Michigan, Hoffa was a labor lawyer in Detroit for 25 years, where he represented workers on such issues as Social Security, workers compensation and personal matters. He also represented joint councils and local unions. Hoffa received his law degree from the University of Michigan. He graduated with a degree in economics from Michigan State University, where he also played football.
Our nation’s rail system remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The rail workers we represent – locomotive engineers, trainmen, and track and bridge workers – still do not have adequate security training. They need to know how to thwart a train hijacking, an attack on critical rail infrastructure or the planting of a bomb on freight cars or passenger trains. Rail lines routinely run through our major cities and towns carrying anhydrous ammonia, nuclear waste and other toxic chemicals. Freight rail corporations, however, still do not give fire and rescue operators real-time information about their trains’ cargo. Studies, such as the… Read more
The best labor policy is a job, and the president’s stimulus package will create plenty of them. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is expected to result in millions more jobs. In the next 18 months, it will create150,000 new transportation jobs. Many of those jobs will involve rebuilding our transportation infrastructure, including building high-speed rail, repairing roads and bridges, paving runways and buying new buses. These will be good jobs at good wages – and that’s what unions want. Importantly, the economic stimulus package includes a $13 billion commitment to high-speed rail over the next five… Read more
The Transportation Department runs a program that is illegal, unsuccessful, dangerous and highly unpopular. President Obama should pull the plug on it immediately. It’s called the cross-border truck pilot program. We call it the first step to opening the border to unsafe trucks from Mexico. Bush Transportation Secretary Mary Peters opened our southern border in September 2007. She tried to do it quietly, and for good reason: It’s against the law. The Transportation Department cannot legally open the Mexican border to trucks until it proves that highway safety won’t be compromised. The Transportation Department failed. Mexican… Read more
America is going through an economic catastrophe the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. That’s why we need government spending on the order of the New Deal. A big part of President Obama’s stimulus package should be a massive public works program. Our roads and bridges are wearing out faster than they’re being replaced. There is a huge backlog of projects ready to go. Putting people to work on bridge and highway construction will put money in their pockets, and that money in turn will circulate through the domestic economy. President Obama’s biggest challenge will be… Read more
Related Link: http://www.teamster.org
