Jimmy Hoffa means of leveraging union strength at one company, to then move to organize workers, and finally to win contract demands at other companies. This process, which took several years starting in the early 1930s, eventually brought the Teamsters to a position of being one of the most powerful unions in the United States. Trucking unions in that era were heavily influenced by, and in many cases controlled by elements of, organized crime. For Hoffa to unify and expand trucking unions, he had to make accommodations and arrangements with many gangsters, beginning in the Detroit area. Organized crime influence on the
Jimmy Hoffa arrived at the scene. State police were brought in and the FBI was alerted. At suppertime, Hoffa's son, James P. Hoffa, filed a missing persons report. Years of extensive investigation, involving numerous law enforcement agencies including the FBI, came to no definite conclusion. Giacalone and Provenzano, who denied having scheduled a meeting with Hoffa, were found not to have been near the restaurant that afternoon. Hoffa was declared legally dead on July 30, 1982. The case continues to be the subject of rumor and speculation. Hoffa's wife, Josephine, died in 1980. According to her children, she died of the grief