James Hoffa Seeks Teamsters Presidency

James Hoffa drew cheers as he made his formal announcement Monday that he is running for the post his father once held: president of the Teamsters union.

“I run because I see a great union on the edge of financial collapse, while an incumbent administration spends us into bankruptcy,” Hoffa said before the start of Detroit’s Labor Day parade.

“It is Labor Day, but it is not labor’s year or even labor’s decade,” he said. “A resurgent corporate greed takes from our pockets every day by the employment of scabs.”

A crowd of several thousand interrupted with frequent chants of “Hoffa, Hoffa, Hoffa.” Truckers blew their horns as they passed.

Hoffa’s father, Jimmy Hoffa, disappeared 20 years ago after leaving a Detroit restaurant and has never been found.

The younger Hoffa, a labor lawyer and executive assistant to the Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43 president, wants to unseat Ron Carey as head of the 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 1996.