A favorable side to the career of Jimmy Hoffa, the tough labor leader, who built the International Brotherhood of Teamsters into a mighty union of more than a million members, while allying himself with mobsters, has come to light from a surprising source — the State of Israel. On March 5, in Washington, D.C., the American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center at Tel Aviv University will pay tribute to Hoffa at a gala dinner that will feature prominent Israeli and American dignitaries.

In the late 1940s, Hoffa, inspired by and sympathetic toward the labor-led Zionist cause, used his Teamsters’ influence to smuggle arms and supplies to the Jewish community in Palestine, and subsequently forged links between his union and the new-born State of Israel. In 1955, Hoffa sponsored a charity dinner that raised $300,000 for an orphanage in Jerusalem and visited there to personally dedicate it.

Hoffa was not Jewish and he had no profit or personal motivation to help the Jews fighting in Palestine. It’s not as if there were many Jewish teamsters. Yet he did so at some degree of personal risk, because he sincerely believed in the Zionist cause and that the Israeli labor movement should also be supported. When he visited Israel in the early 1970s, he was warmly greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Jimmy Hoffa had a stormy career that included a publicized conflict with then Attorney-General Robert Kennedy; a jail sentence for trying to bribe a juror; a pardon by President Nixon; an attempt to regain the union presidency, and his sudden disappearance at a Detroit restaurant, after which he was probably shot on orders of a top mobster.

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Court Injunction in Brazil Wins Truckers a Shorter Working Day

A Brazilian court has ruled that a trucker’s working day should be limited to eight hours. A preliminary injunction, which applies to transport companies across Brazil, cites evidence that trucks are involved in 70 percent of the accidents on Mato Grasso highways; that some 51 percent of truckers passing through Matos Grosso use or have used drugs to stay awake, and that 46 percent work more than 16 hours a day.

The injunction orders that tachographs, which record distances traveled by trucks and the speeds at which they are traveling, are to be used to monitor how long a driver is working. Where limits are exceeded, fines of $1,000 will be imposed on the company employing the driver. The injunction also applies to owner-drivers.

Labour Prosecutor Paulo Douglas de Moraes said that driver fatigue was a major source of accidents, adding: “Soon we will sign an agreement with the Labour Ministry, the Labour General Attorney and the Federal Road Police to ensure the decision is implemented. Organizations representing employers and owner-drivers are seeking to overturn the injunction.”

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Unions May Strike for Share in Algeria’s Windfall Oil Profits

Public sector workers in OPEC-member Algeria may stage an unprecedented, indefinite strike if the government ignores demands for a bigger share of windfall oil earnings, a trade union federation stated on Feb. 27. The independent federation, known by its acronym CNSAFP, recently shut down part of the state apparatus by orchestrating two three-day strikes by administrators, doctors, nurses, teachers and municipal workers who have rejected planned pay increases of 20 percent to 25 percent.

The unusual, illegal work stoppages by tens of thousands of workers were denounced as “unjustified agitation” by the government, which has refused to recognize the federation. But the federation’s campaign has struck a sympathetic response among war-weary Algerians desperate for work, housing and a future. Nearly 75 percent of Algeria’s under 30-year-olds are unemployed and complaints about high prices are heard everywhere.

A CNSAFP spokesman noted that there has bee a sharp decline in purchasing power. “Compared to the 1990s, when average monthly salaries were equivalent to $500, nowadays they aren’t worth more than $250,” he said. The official UGTA trade union federation, seen by critics as a government puppet, condemned the strikes, saying the planned pay rises it agreed to in talks with the government were satisfactory.

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British Unions Use ‘Cyber Warfare’ Against Anti-Union Employers

The two million-member union, Unite, is using Google, the miraculous Internet search engine, as a resource to attack Marks & Spencer over the issue of worker rights. M&S is a giant, all-purpose retailer with 76 stores in 30 countries. Under Unite’s plan, anyone typing M&S or variations of “Marks & Spencer” into Google will receive a direct link to the “Look Behind the Label” campaign, which states the various grievances the union has against the giant retailer.

Tony Woodley, Unite’s general secretary, says: “The power of the Internet gives unions the potential to go beyond their membership and reach out directly to millions of people and influence consumers. For companies such as M&S, its brand is everything. A concerted campaign against a company’s behavior can be a very effective addition to industrial action.” The cost to the union for taking its views on to the global stage could be as little as £500 ($759), the union estimates.

Unite has been in negotiations with Marks & Spencer for three months over allegations that M&S is using a “two-tier” workforce in companies that supply it with poultry and red meat. The union claims that in an attempt to drive down labor costs, M&S suppliers are using agency workers on a near-permanent basis and refusing to grant such workers, often immigrants, the same conditions as the full-time staff.

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Egyptian Workers Strike Against Plan to Reduce Wages by 20%

More than 2,200 employees at the Ramus Company for Agricultural Projects and the South Valley Company for Agricultural Development in Toshka went on strike Feb. 29 and staged a sit-in at the headquarters of the two companies. They were protesting a decision to cut their wages by 20 percent. The strikers said they would not go back to work, even if this led to the loss of crops, unless management backed down on the new decision and improved their situation.

The strikers mentioned that that the management had sent a note to Cairo calling for the dismissal of workers’ leaders, who were only demanding their rights. They also said they wanted to receive annual pay raises like public sector workers and to be provided medical insurance for them and their families. (80 percent of the workforce has no health insurance.)

CEO managing director Seoudi Elewa of the South Valley Company said that basic wages would not be reduced as this was up to the holding company’s board of directors. He said that wages were variable because they were subject to several criteria and are therefore unstable. He also said that the company had taken the decision a year before of reducing wages by 20 percent, which is why they would not be reduced further.

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Historic Strike in Turkish Dockyards Against Worker Homicides

Thousands of Turkish dockyard workers went on strike at the Tuzla dockyards Feb. 28, despite heavy police repression. The strike, called by the union, DISK/Umter-Is, comes after the deaths of 18 workers in eight months. The incidents, called “work accidents” by the bosses, and “work homicides” by the union, has created a wave of anger among the dockyard workers.

At the outset of the two-day protest strike called by the union, the police launched a brutal attack on its leaders who were cutting off the main road leading to the dockyards. In all, about 75 workers were arrested and heavily beaten by the police, including the top officers of Umter-Is, who were later released.

Tuzla dockyards is the heart of Turkey’s shipbuilding business. The government has always collaborated with the dockyard bosses, saying that they represent a very important sector of Turkey’s exports, and provide large dollar income to the economy.

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