If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

We're very excited to be launching a new, wide ranging series on the history of allegations levied against unions of corruption and relations with organized crime. Ever since the formation of the first labor unions, the capitalists and their media have been denouncing organized labor as corrupt, violent, led by racketeers, and in bed with the mob. This allegation remains common today, and what better way to help fight these ideological attacks on unions than by confronting these allegations head on and examining the historical record. And of course, there's no other place we could start than with the case of Jimmy Hoffa, whose reputation looms large as one of the most notorious figures in US labor history. To rigorously examine his case, we will have to go all the way back to the founding of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and follow allegations of corruption from the early days of the union up through today. 

In this episode, we discuss how the ruling class attacked unions for supposedly being corrupt from the very beginning, and used the media to minimize violence by bosses and amplify stories of violence by workers. In future episodes we will go through a century of Teamster history, the rise of Jimmy Hoffa, his presidency of the union and his fight with the Kennedys, his imprisonment, his disappearance, and ultimately his legacy.  Along the way we will do our best to separate real instances of corruption from the mountain of insinuations and rumor, and discuss what lessons we can learn for our organizing today.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Overtime Episode 26 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 1

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

In the second episode of our new series examining historical allegations of union corruption and relations with organized crime, we discuss the Daniel Tobin era of the Teamsters from the first decade of the 20th century to the end of WW2. In this period, massive technological changes revolutionized the work of Teamsters, shifting from driving teams of horses in busy urban streets to interstate motorized trucking. This period also saw the rise of the mafia during the years of Prohibition. With the ruling class desperate for a scapegoat to blame for the collapse of the economy during the Great Depression, the capitalist press seized on the opportunity to attack the unions, and so they immediately made the association between unions and the mob. In this episode, we discuss both real instances of corrupt union officials working with mobsters, but also heroic struggles by union leaders to fight the mob, some even paying with their lives.

In future episodes, we will discuss the rise of Dave Beck as Teamster President, Congress's attempt to go after unions with the McClellan Committee, and the dawn of the Hoffa Era.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Overtime Episode 27 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 2

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

Episode 1 - Communism vs. Corruption

One of the peculiarities of the US labor movement is the existence of two different unions for longshore workers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on the West Coast, and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) on the East Coast. Originally, the ILA represented members on both coasts, bringing all longshore workers in the country under one union. But after the refusal of the national leadership to support the 1934 San Francisco General Strike or to support the move to expand the union to warehouse workers, the West Coast workers seceded and formed their own union. 

In this series we will examine the history of the ILA and dig into why West Coast longshore workers felt they had no choice but to form their own union. We will examine the key factors that have prevented the rise of a democratic reform movement within the ILA, and how collusion between shipping companies, the federal government, and the mafia played a critical role in suppressing reform. We will discuss the long fight by the rank and file for reform, and how the federal government time and time again stepped in to squash it. 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

New tracks tagged #Unions and The Mob