Labor history of the United States democracy on the previously authoritarian union hierarchies. However, in the 1958 elections, taking place during a sharp economic recession, the unions fought back especially against state Right to Work laws and defeated many conservative Republicans. The Teamsters union was expelled from the AFL for its notorious corruption under president Dave Beck. Its troubles gained national attention from highly visible Senate hearings. The target was Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1975), who replaced Beck and held total power until he was imprisoned in 1964. The UAW under Reuther played a major role in funding and supporting the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and
Jimmy Hoffa his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy as Attorney General. Robert Kennedy had been frustrated in earlier attempts to convict Hoffa, while working as counsel to the McClellan subcommittee. As Attorney General from 1961, Kennedy pursued the strongest attack on organized crime that the country had ever seen, and he carried on with a so-called "Get Hoffa" squad of prosecutors and investigators. In 1964, Hoffa was convicted in Chattanooga, Tennessee of attempted bribery of a grand juror, and was sentenced to eight years. This case resulted from an earlier matter, the Test Fleet case, the trial for which had been held