WASHINGTON -- James P. Hoffa, the newly elected president of the Teamsters Union, says he wants to "look to the future" and not dwell on the past. But one bit of history he will not forget.
"The mob killed my father," he said Sunday as he basked in his electoral victory. "They're never going to come back in this union. I'll see to that."Hoffa, 57, said he has "nothing but fond memories" of his father, Jimmy Hoffa, who headed the Teamsters when it was at its most powerful and most controversial. The elder Hoffa disappeared in 1975, apparently murdered by Mafia hitmen.
Late Sunday, the Teamsters election headquarters said that Hoffa had 177,200 votes to 127,287 for Tom Leedham, a union official in charge of its warehouse division, and 19,387 for John Metz, who did not campaign.
Leedham conceded defeat Saturday, although the vote counting was to continue today. An estimated 420,000 ballots were cast, union officials said.
Hoffa said Sunday he would work for a fiscally sound, militant union that is devoid of the organized crime links that tainted the organization when his father was in charge.
"Let's forget about the past. Let's look to the future," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Hoffa, a Detroit labor lawyer, narrowly lost a 1996 election to incumbent president Ron Carey.
Carey later was ousted after investigators found that his campaign benefited from an illegal fund-raising scheme.
Hoffa said his goal was to restore the union to its glory days, when "we were the strongest, richest union in the world." In its heyday, the union had 2 million members, a number now down to about 1.4 million.
Hoffa urged more militancy in re-negotiating contracts and said he would try to balance the union budget without raising dues. "This union's been through a civil war. We've got to pull it together. We've got to restore the financial integrity of this union."
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 said it would be a "challenge" getting along with AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who was close to Carey, although he looked forward to his first meeting with the AFL-CIO board.
The AFL-CIO has had close ties with the Democratic Party while the Teamsters traditionally have tilted toward the Republicans. "I think the AFL-CIO is realizing the mistake they made by being tied to one party or the other. They take you for granted," Hoffa said.
Hoffa's handling of the Teamsters will be closely watched. Can he restore the power the union once had under his father?
Jimmy Hoffa is perhaps the best-known name in the labor movement, said Arthur Sloane, biographer of the labor leader who disappeared 23 years ago. He "was an amazingly effective, highly popular" leader and "was enormously charismatic, hard-driving, very bright."
"Jim (the son) has a lot of those qualities, but certainly in less degree," said Sloane, a professor of industrial relations at the University of Delaware. "He's very energetic, a good speaker, he's got a certain amount of charisma."
"He doesn't have all the strengths of his dad, and he doesn't have the weaknesses of his dad," added Sloane, alluding to the elder Hoffa's widely known association with organized crime figures.
Raymond Hilgert, a labor arbitrator and professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said Hoffa may not be considered "a real Teamsters" by some union members since -- unlike his father -- he did not come up through the ranks.
"But he carries the magical name of Hoffa. That's probably the strongest thing he's got going," said Hilgert.