Jimmy Hoffa: A WORKER’S HERO

James R. Hoffa served as the union’s General President from 1957 to 1971. Hoffa was born on February 14, 1913, in Brazil, Ind. He began his working life at an early age in order to help support the family following the death of his father in 1921. He was keenly aware that his father’s death was directly related to the working conditions on the job in the town’s coal mines, and never forgot the pain and hardships it caused. Hoffa began taking on odd jobs and continued this practice when he moved with his mother and three siblings to Detroit in 1924. He was initiated into the labor movement in his teens when he took on full-time work as a warehouseman for Kroger grocery stores. It was there in 1932, angry over poor working conditions and unfair treatment of employees, that Hoffa led fellow workers in a successful strike against the company. He was just 19 years old… read more >