36 Facts About Frank Fitzsimmons

Frank Edward Fitzsimmons was an American labor leader.

Frank Fitzsimmons was acting president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1967 to 1971, and president from 1971 to 1981.

Frank Fitzsimmons was born on April 7,1908, in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, to Irish-American parents, Frank and Ida May Fitzsimmons.

Frank Fitzsimmons's father was a brewer who moved the family to Detroit, Michigan, in 1924 when Frank was 16.

Frank Fitzsimmons's father died of a heart attack when Fitzsimmons was 17 years old, and Frank dropped out of high school to support his family by working in an automobile hardware store.

Frank Fitzsimmons joined Teamsters Local 299, and became friendly with the local union's president, Jimmy Hoffa.

Frank Fitzsimmons was appointed secretary-treasurer of the 80,000-member Michigan Conference of Teamsters in 1949, and vice president of Teamsters Joint Council 43 in Detroit in 1959.

Nonetheless, Frank Fitzsimmons was considered an adept manager and a very skilled contract negotiator.

On February 28,1967, the Teamsters executive board passed a resolution appointing Frank Fitzsimmons "acting president" if Hoffa was no longer able to carry out his duties.

Frank Fitzsimmons was to be nothing more than a glorified gofer:.

Frank Fitzsimmons negotiated a second contract three years later that provided a 27-percent wage increase over three years.

Frank Fitzsimmons rapidly solidified his own hold on the Teamsters presidency throughout 1967.

Frank Fitzsimmons had permitted the International vice presidents greater latitude in their own affairs and delegated authority to them, winning their allegiance.

Frank Fitzsimmons further increased his popularity by negotiating in October 1967 a national master contract in the trucking industry that brought 40,000 Northeastern truckers into the contract for the first time and by negotiating a new contract that ended a five-month steel haulers' strike.

On June 19,1971, Hoffa resigned as Teamsters president and Frank Fitzsimmons was elected international president on his own right on July 9,1971.

On July 10,1975, a Lincoln Continental used by Richard Frank Fitzsimmons was destroyed by a bomb outside a bar in which he was having a drink.

Frank Fitzsimmons engaged in a notorious jurisdictional and organizing dispute with the United Farm Workers from 1972 to 1977, raiding the smaller union and establishing a new national farm workers' union to compete with it.

The series of raids and counter-raids, repudiated contracts, and public-relations attacks began in December 1972 when Frank Fitzsimmons ordered a 1967 no-raid and organizing non-compete agreement with the UFW to be dissolved and Teamsters contract negotiators to reopen contracts.

In October 1973, Frank Fitzsimmons ended a longrunning jurisdictional dispute with the United Brewery Workers, and the Brewery Workers merged with the Teamsters.

However, Frank Fitzsimmons supported the government's position, and Charles Colson, special counsel to Nixon who helped negotiate Hoffa's release, backed Fitzsimmon's interpretation of the release agreement.

Hoffa intended to publish a book accusing Frank Fitzsimmons of "selling out to mobsters" and giving large low- and no-interest loans from Teamsters pension funds to mob-related businesses.

Frank Fitzsimmons was for a time a suspect in the disappearance.

Frank Fitzsimmons continued to solidify his hold on the Teamsters throughout 1975 and 1976.

Frank Fitzsimmons oversaw national trucking negotiations again in 1976, which led to major wage gains.

Frank Fitzsimmons was re-elected General President of the Teamsters in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 16,1976.

Frank Fitzsimmons was investigated in 1976 for failing to perform his fiduciary duties as a trustee on the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund and was forced to resign from the board of trustees in 1977.

Frank Fitzsimmons was subpoenaed by both the US Senate's Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and by the Labor Department, and he testified in public and private regarding loans the pension fund made to certain mob-related businesses and the fund's operations.

One of the last national negotiations that Frank Fitzsimmons oversaw was another national trucking contract.

The Carter administration had imposed wage and price controls, which sought to hold collective bargaining wage and benefit increases to 7.5 percent a year, but Frank Fitzsimmons sought 10 percent a year.

The strike and the lockout were short because of those pressures, and Frank Fitzsimmons reached on April 11,1979, an agreement that met Carter's wage-control guideline.

Frank Fitzsimmons's cancer returned in January 1981, leading to repeated hospitalizations, tests, weight loss, hair loss, and bouts of depression.

Frank Fitzsimmons's illness led to deterioration in labor relations in the trucking industry.

Deregulation had led to fierce competition and lower rates in the industry, and several trucking companies let it be known that they would not pay the wage and benefit increases Frank Fitzsimmons had negotiated two years before.

Williams made it clear that if Frank Fitzsimmons's health improved he would back the ailing general president.

Frank Fitzsimmons died of lung cancer in San Diego, California, on May 6,1981.

Frank Fitzsimmons was survived by his second wife, Mary, and his four children.