WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teamsters president-elect James P. Hoffa promised Sunday to guide the union back to the glory days it enjoyed under his father three decades ago but without the mob ties that were the undoing of Jimmy Hoffa.
The 57-year-old Detroit labor lawyer, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," also said the future Teamsters will be more aggressive in negotiating contracts. "We're going to see a new militancy of the Teamsters in our negotiations," he said.The union reached the pinnacle of its power under Jimmy Hoffa in the 1960s, but both he and the union were tainted by charges of ties to organized crime. Hoffa disappeared in 1975, possibly the victim of mob violence.
"We were the strongest, richest union in the free world," the younger Hoffa said Sunday. "We want to get back to that."
Teamsters election headquarters said that with 396 of 541 locals reporting, Hoffa had 136,325 votes, Tom Leedham had 98,377 votes and John Metz, who didn't campaign, 15,028. Leedham, chief of the union's warehouse division, conceded defeat on Saturday.
A federal officer was overseeing the procedure under a deal struck with the Justice Department a decade ago to help loosen the grip of organized crime.
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, on CBS's "Face the Nation," offered Hoffa her congratulations. "He has said that he wants to pursue a goal of fiscal integrity, of organizing rank and file. We support him in that, and I look forward to working with him," Herman said.
Hoffa critics have warned he would restore the old Teamsters establishment to power, inviting the return of corruption, but Hoffa insisted: "The mob killed my father. They are never going to come back in this union. I will see to that."
He said his critics were "linked to the most corrupt Ron Carey administration we've ever seen. That really tells you where they're coming from."
The 1.4 million-member Teamsters have seen their membership decline in recent years and top leaders end up in legal trouble. Incumbent Carey won election under government scrutiny in 1991 and was narrowly re-elected in 1996 over Hoffa. Carey was later ousted after investigators found that his campaign benefited from an illegal fund-raising scheme.
"This union's been through a civil war," Hoffa said. "We've got to pull it together, we've got to restore the financial integrity of this union." He said he would work to balance the union's budget without raising dues.
Hoffa said it would be a "challenge" getting along with AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who was close to Carey and has been a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. Hoffa said his union, which until Carey's administration traditionally tilted toward the Republicans, would try to be bipartisan.
"I think the AFL-CIO is realizing the mistake they made by being tied to one party or the other," he said. "They take you for granted."