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204-683: In December 1952, Robert F. Kennedy was appointed assistant counsel for the Committee on Government Operations by the then-chairman of the committee, Senator Joseph McCarthy . Kennedy resigned in July 1953, but rejoined the committee staff as chief minority counsel in February 1954. When the Democrats regained the majority in January 1955, Kennedy became the committee's chief counsel. Soon thereafter,

408-456: A commutation of sentence agreement with President Richard Nixon , from participating directly or indirectly in union activities until March 6, 1980, Hoffa was released from prison on December 23, 1971, but disappeared on July 30, 1975 (and was presumably murdered). The hearings had positive benefits for other key participants as well. The Kennedy-Ives bill was Senator John F. Kennedy's most important legislative accomplishment, and although it

612-406: A $ 10,000 fine. While on bail during his appeal , a second federal district court jury convicted Hoffa on July 26, 1964, on one count of conspiracy and three counts of mail and wire fraud , and sentenced to five years in prison. Hoffa entered prison on March 7, 1967, and Frank Fitzsimmons was named Acting President of the union. Hoffa resigned as Teamsters president on June 19, 1971. Barred by

816-619: A November 2008 New York Times editorial, Andrew Ross Sorkin claimed that the average UAW worker was paid $ 70 per hour, including health and pension costs, while Toyota workers in the US receive $ 10 to $ 20 less. The UAW asserts that most of this labor cost disparity comes from legacy pension and healthcare benefits to retired members, of which the Japanese automakers have none. The Big Three already sold each of their cars for about $ 2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at

1020-708: A Protestant school in Concord, New Hampshire ; Portsmouth Priory , a Benedictine Catholic school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island ; then, in September 1942, to Milton Academy , a preparatory school near Boston in Milton, Massachusetts , for 11th and 12th grades. Kennedy graduated from Milton in May 1944. Kennedy later said that, during childhood, he was "going to different schools, always having to make new friends, and that I

1224-659: A bachelor's degree in political science . In September 1948, he enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville . Kennedy adapted to this new environment, being elected president of the Student Legal Forum, where he successfully produced outside speakers including James M. Landis , William O. Douglas , Arthur Krock , Joseph McCarthy , and his brother John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's paper on Yalta , written during his senior year,

1428-531: A bargaining agent under the newly adopted National Labor Relations Act . This recognition marked a turning point in the growth of the UAW and organized labor unions more generally. The next month, auto workers at Chrysler won recognition of the UAW as their representative in a sitdown strike. By mid-1937 the new union claimed 150,000 members and was spreading through the auto and parts manufacturing towns of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The Ford Motor Company

1632-689: A basic understanding: the Soviet Union would withdraw their missiles from Cuba, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also informally proposed that the Jupiter MRBMs in Turkey would be removed "within a short time after this crisis was over". On the last night of the crisis, President Kennedy was so grateful for his brother's work in averting nuclear war that he summed it up by saying, "Thank God for Bobby." Kennedy authored his account of

1836-472: A benefit not calculated by the UAW's many critics. The UAW has claimed that the primary cause of the automotive sector's weakness was substantially more expensive fuel costs linked to the 2003-2008 oil crisis which caused customers to turn away from large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup trucks , the main market of the American Big Three. In 2008, the situation became critical because

2040-586: A close friend, criticized Kennedy for presuming the guilt of anyone who exercised his Fifth Amendment rights. Noted attorney Edward Bennett Williams accused the Select Committee of bringing witnesses into executive session, ascertaining that they would exercise their Fifth Amendment rights, and then force them to return in public and refuse to answer questions—merely to generate media attention. The Chicago American newspaper so strongly criticized Robert Kennedy for his overbearing, zealous behavior during

2244-561: A closed casket, as he wanted the funeral to keep with tradition, but he changed his mind after seeing the cosmetic, waxen remains. The ten-month investigation by the Warren Commission concluded that the president had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had acted alone. On September 27, 1964, Kennedy issued a statement through his New York campaign office: "As I said in Poland last summer, I am convinced Oswald

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2448-466: A conviction against Hoffa. Kennedy's focus on Hoffa was so strong that many observers at the time as well as later historians believed Kennedy had a personal vendetta against Hoffa. Hoffa was eventually convicted by a federal district court jury on March 4, 1964, on two counts of tampering with the jury during his 1962 conspiracy trial in Nashville, Tennessee , and sentenced to eight years in prison and

2652-530: A draft dodger; Roosevelt eventually did make the statement that Humphrey avoided service. Concerned that John Kennedy was going to receive the Democratic Party's nomination, some supporters of Lyndon Johnson, who was also running for the nomination, revealed to the press that John had Addison's disease , saying that he required life-sustaining cortisone treatments. Though in fact a diagnosis had been made, Robert tried to protect his brother by denying

2856-568: A general election that already promised to be a landslide. United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers ( UAW ), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America , is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ) and southern Ontario , Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in

3060-480: A gifted politician with an ability to obtain compromises, tempering aggressive positions of key figures in the hawk camp. The trust the president placed in him on matters of negotiation was such that his role in the crisis is today seen as having been of vital importance in securing a blockade , which averted a full military engagement between the United States and the Soviet Union. On October 27, Kennedy secretly met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin . They reached

3264-538: A junior after receiving credit for his time in the V-12 program. He worked hard to make the Harvard Crimson football team as an end ; he was a starter and scored a touchdown in the first game of his senior year before breaking his leg in practice. He earned his varsity letter when his coach sent him in wearing a cast during the last minutes of a game against Yale . Kennedy graduated from Harvard in 1948 with

3468-484: A lack of organizing funds, fear of retaliation among the workers, distrust from Black and foreign workers, and strong opposition from the automobile companies. By 1935 the majority of members had been recruited by militant local activists taking their own initiative at plants outside Michigan. Many of these militant local unions opposed the AFL's plan to divide their members into different craft unions. They began advocating for

3672-538: A leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency by appealing to poor, African American, Hispanic , Catholic , and young voters . His main challenger in the race was Senator Eugene McCarthy . Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan , a 24-year-old Palestinian, allegedly in retaliation for his support of Israel following

3876-714: A lengthy, ongoing, and sometimes violent strike which the UAW was conducting against the Kohler plumbing fixtures company in Wisconsin. Walter Reuther , president of the Auto Workers, told Select Committee investigators that the Kohler Company was committing numerous unfair labor practices against the union and that the union's books were in order. Despite no evidence of any mismanagement or organized crime infiltration, Kennedy and McClellan went ahead with hearings on

4080-543: A little legal experience before he goes out to practice law." Pressed by the Senate Judiciary Committee about his inexperience, Kennedy responded: "In my estimation I think that I have had invaluable experience ... I would not have given up one year of experience that I have had over the period since I graduated from law school for experience practicing law in Boston." According to Bobby Baker ,

4284-406: A majority of the workers signing cards asking for UAW representation, in February 2014 workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga , Tennessee plant narrowly voted down the union 712 to 626. However, the UAW organized a minority union Local 42, which was voluntary and does not collect dues. After the close vote against the UAW, Volkswagen announced a new policy allowing groups representing at least 15% of

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4488-661: A management "bill of rights" to the bill which labor strongly denounced. But with this and other Republican-backed amendments, the bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly. By 1959 the Eisenhower administration had crafted its own bill, which was co-sponsored in the House of Representatives by Phillip M. Landrum (Democrat from Georgia ) and Robert P. Griffin (Republican from Michigan ). The Landrum-Griffin bill contained much stricter financial reporting and fiduciary restrictions than

4692-566: A military strike that might have led to nuclear war . Allegations that the Kennedys knew of plans by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro , or approved of such plans, have been debated by historians over the years. The " Family Jewels " documents, declassified by the CIA in 2007, suggest that before the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the attorney general personally authorized one such assassination attempt. But there

4896-552: A new corporatist mentality that accepted management's argument that shorter hours conflicted with wage increases and other job benefits and abandoning the old confrontational syndicalist position that shorter hours drove up wages and protected against unemployment. The UAW delivered contracts for his membership through negotiation. Reuther would pick one of the Big Three automakers ( General Motors , Ford , and Chrysler ), and if it did not offer concessions, he would strike it and let

5100-462: A non-discrimination clause drafted by Shelton Tappes , a Black foundryman who had served on the UAW negotiating team. Communists provided many of the organizers and led some key union locals, especially Local 600 which represented the largest Ford plants. The Communist faction had some key positions in the union, including the directorship of the Washington office, the research department, and

5304-535: A number of organized crime figures to the public's attention, including Anthony Corrallo , Vito Genovese , Anthony Provenzano , Joey Glimco , Sam Giancana , and Carlos Marcello . Although more muted and less frequent, criticisms of the Select Committee and Robert Kennedy continued. Kennedy's moralism about labor racketeering, several high-profile critics concluded, even endangered the Constitution. Although McClellan wanted to further investigate organized crime,

5508-562: A number of sensational hearings on organized crime from 1960 to 1964 which became known as the Valachi Hearings . In 1962, McClellan published his own account of the Select Committee's activities and findings in the book Crime Without Punishment. The senator sponsored several pieces of important anti-crime legislation in the 1960s and early 1970s, including the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and

5712-620: A philanthropist and socialite. He was the seventh of their nine children. Robert described his position in the family hierarchy by saying, "When you come from that far down, you have to struggle to survive." His parents were members of two prominent Irish-American families that were active in the Massachusetts Democratic Party . All four of Kennedy's grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. His eight siblings were Joseph Jr. , John , Rosemary , Kathleen , Eunice , Patricia , Jean , and Ted . Starting from

5916-678: A private, backchannel connection to Soviet GRU officer Georgi Bolshakov , he relayed important diplomatic communications between the U.S. and Soviet governments. Most significantly, this connection helped the U.S. set up the Vienna Summit in June 1961, and later to defuse the tank standoff with the Soviets at Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie in October. Kennedy's visit with his wife to West Berlin in February 1962 demonstrated U.S. support for

6120-635: A relentless crusade against organized crime and the Mafia , sometimes disagreeing on strategy with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover . Through speeches and writing, Kennedy alerted the country to the existence of a "private government of organized crime with an annual income of billions, resting on a base of human suffering and moral corrosion". He established the first coordinated program involving all 26 federal law enforcement agencies to investigate organized crime. The Justice Department targeted prominent Mafia leaders like Carlos Marcello and Joey Aiuppa ; Marcello

6324-478: A reputation for ruthlessness and hard work. His experiences with the Select Committee significantly affected Robert Kennedy, and strongly influenced his decision to make fighting organized crime a high priority during his tenure as United States Attorney General . After leaving the Select Committee, Robert F. Kennedy spent the better part of a year writing about his experiences and what he had learned about unions and organized crime. Kennedy's book, The Enemy Within ,

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6528-428: A roll-call vote. The deputy and assistant attorneys general Kennedy chose included Byron White and Nicholas Katzenbach . Author James W. Hilty concludes that Kennedy "played an unusual combination of roles—campaign director, attorney general, executive overseer, controller of patronage , chief adviser, and brother protector" and that nobody before him had had such power. To a great extent, President Kennedy sought

6732-505: A series of investigative pieces that earned reporters a Pulitzer Prize , and prosecutors indicted about 30 people. Working with the FBI, the Select Committee electrified the nation when on February 22, 1957, wiretaps were played in public before a national television audience in which Dio and Hoffa discussed the creation of even more paper locals, including the establishment of a paper local to organize New York City's 30,000 taxi cab drivers and use

6936-471: A solidly middle-class family in Boston, his father amassed a fortune and established trust funds for his nine children that guaranteed lifelong financial security. Turning to politics, Joe Sr. became a leading figure in the Democratic Party and had the money and connections to play a central role in the family's political ambitions. During Robert's childhood, his father dubbed him the "runt" of

7140-478: A sort of private government. The Select Committee also accused Hoffa of instigating the creation of the paper locals, and of arranging for a $ 400,000 loan to the graft-ridden International Longshoremen's Association in a bid to take over that union and gain Teamsters control of the waterfront as well as warehouses. Johnny Dio, who by late summer 1957 was in prison serving time on bribery and conspiracy charges,

7344-473: A steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation , decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing (including reaction to NAFTA ), and increased globalization . After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant ( VW ) in 2024. UAW members in the 21st century work in industries including autos and auto parts, health care, casino gambling, and higher education. The union

7548-525: A teenager, Kennedy secured a clerking job at the same East Boston bank where his father had once worked. Kennedy was bored by the drudgery, though he enjoyed taking the Boston subway and encountering, for the first time, "common folk". He began to notice inequity in the wider world. On a trip to the family's home in Hyannis Port, Kennedy began questioning his father about the poverty he glimpsed from

7752-431: A trial basis, for a month or so", Hoover extended the clearance so that his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The wiretapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968, days before Kennedy's death. Relations between the Kennedys and civil-rights activists could be tense, partly due to the administration's decision that a number of complaints King filed with

7956-615: A very sensitive time in U.S.-Japan relations , shortly after the massive Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty had highlighted anti-American grievances. Kennedy won over a highly skeptical Japanese public and press with his cheerful, open demeanor, sincerity, and youthful energy. Most famously, Kennedy scored a public relations coup during a nationally televised speech at Waseda University in Tokyo. When radical Marxist student activists from Zengakuren attempted to shout him down, he calmly invited one of them on stage and engaged

8160-550: A victory over a moderate Republican ticket such as Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney , Kennedy supporters attempted to force the issue by running a draft movement during the New Hampshire primary . This movement gained momentum after Governor John W. King 's endorsement and infuriated Johnson. Kennedy received 25,094 write in votes for vice president in New Hampshire, far surpassing Senator Hubert Humphrey,

8364-400: A volunteer mission known as Operation Aphrodite . Robert was most affected by his father's reaction to his eldest son's passing. He appeared completely heartbroken, and his peer Fred Garfield commented that Kennedy developed depression and questioned his faith for a short time. After his brother's death, Robert gained more attention, moving higher up the family patriarchy. On December 15, 1945,

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8568-439: A whites-only snack bar. After winning the 1960 presidential election, president-elect John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother as U.S. attorney general . The choice was controversial, with publications including The New York Times and The New Republic calling him inexperienced and unqualified. He had no experience in any state or federal court, causing the president to joke, "I can't see that it's wrong to give him

8772-521: A wide range of policy issues or reforms to AFL–CIO governance. On July 24, 1968, just days after the UAW disaffiliation, Teamsters General President Frank Fitzsimmons and Reuther formed the Alliance for Labor Action as a new national trade union center to organize unorganized workers and pursue leftist political and social projects. Meany denounced the ALA as a dual union , although Reuther argued it

8976-586: Is deposited in the Law Library's Treasure Trove. He graduated from law school in June 1951, finishing 56th in a class of 125. Upon graduating from Harvard, Kennedy sailed on the RMS ; Queen Mary with a college friend for a tour of Europe and the Middle East, accredited as a correspondent for The Boston Post , filing six stories. Four of these stories, submitted from Palestine shortly before

9180-432: Is evidence to the contrary, such as that Kennedy was informed of an earlier plot involving the CIA's use of Mafia bosses Sam Giancana and John Roselli only during a briefing on May 7, 1962, and in fact directed the CIA to halt any existing efforts directed at Castro's assassination. Biographer Thomas concludes that "the Kennedys may have discussed the idea of assassination as a weapon of last resort. But they did not know

9384-693: Is headquartered in Detroit , Michigan . As of February 24, 2022, the UAW has more than 391,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in over 600 local unions and holds 1,150 contracts with some 1,600 employers. It holds assets amounting to just over $ 1   billion. For most of its history, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had only focused on organizing skilled workers practicing specific trades, an approach known as craft unionism . Most automobile workers were not skilled, so they were largely unorganized. This changed following

9588-486: Is the law. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover viewed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as an upstart troublemaker, calling him an "enemy of the state". In February 1962, Hoover presented Kennedy with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists . Concerned about the allegations, the FBI deployed agents to monitor King in the following months. Kennedy warned King to discontinue

9792-803: The COVID-19 pandemic . Though primarily known for autoworkers, academic staff comprised one quarter of UAW membership in 2022, and the 2022 University of California academic workers' strike achieved higher pay for that UAW affiliate. A corruption probe by the Justice Department against UAW and 3 Fiat Chrysler executives was conducted during 2020 regarding several charges such as racketeering , embezzlement , and tax evasion . It resulted in convictions of 12 union officials and 3 Fiat Chrysler executives, including two former Union Presidents, UAW paying back over $ 15 million in improper chargebacks to worker training centers, payment of $ 1.5 million to

9996-579: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on a limited basis. After his brother's assassination, he remained in office during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson for several months. He left to run for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964 and defeated Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating , overcoming criticism that he

10200-551: The Great Recession significantly impaired the ability of consumers to purchase automobiles. The Big Three also based their respective market strategies on fuel-inefficient SUVs, and suffered from lower quality perception (vis-a-vis automobiles manufactured by Japanese or European car makers). Accordingly, the Big Three directed vehicle development focused on light trucks (which had better profit margins) in order to offset

10404-718: The Greyhound Company and demanded that it obtain a coach operator who was willing to drive a special bus for the continuance of the Freedom Ride from Birmingham to Montgomery, on the circuitous journey to Jackson, Mississippi. Later, during the attack and burning by a white mob of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, which King and 1,500 sympathizers attended, the attorney general telephoned King to ask for his assurance that they would not leave

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10608-549: The International Brotherhood of Teamsters . In the mid-1950s, Midwestern Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa began an effort to unseat Dave Beck , the union's international president. In October 1955, mobster Johnny Dio met with Hoffa in New York City and the two men conspired to create as many as 15 paper locals (fake local unions which existed only on paper) to boost Hoffa's delegate totals. When

10812-550: The International Union of Operating Engineers , and uncovered a limited financial scandal at the top of the union. But the main focus of the committee for the first half of the year was the United Auto Workers. Republicans on the Select Committee, notably Barry Goldwater, had for several months in late 1957 accused Robert Kennedy of covering up extensive corruption in the UAW. The Republicans pointed to

11016-560: The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (part of which contains the highly influential Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ). The Select Committee's chair was Senator John L. McClellan, and the vice chair was Senator Irving Ives. An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the committee. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, and was replaced by Republican Senator Homer E. Capehart. Democratic Senator Patrick McNamara resigned from

11220-568: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations , under the leadership of Democratic Senator John L. McClellan of Arkansas (chair of the committee and subcommittee), began holding hearings into labor racketeering ( labor , racketeering ). Much of the Permanent Subcommittee's work focused on a scandal which emerged in 1956 in the powerful trade union ,

11424-552: The Saturday Evening Post ("The Amazing Kennedys") helped raise the Kennedy profile. "Two boyish young men from Boston," wrote a Look magazine reporter, "have become hot tourist attractions in Washington." Kennedy left the committee in September 1959 in order to manage his brother's presidential campaign. The following year, Kennedy published The Enemy Within , a book which described the corrupt practices within

11628-519: The U.S. Navy commissioned the destroyer USS  Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. , and shortly thereafter granted Kennedy's request to be released from naval-officer training to serve aboard Kennedy starting on February 1, 1946, as a seaman apprentice on the ship's shakedown cruise in the Caribbean . On May 30, 1946, he received his honorable discharge from the Navy. For his service in the Navy, Kennedy

11832-515: The United Auto Workers (UAW), Anheuser-Busch , Sears , and Occidental Life Insurance . The Select Committee also established formal liaisons with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service , Federal Narcotics Bureau , Department of Labor , and other federal agencies as well as state and local offices and officials involved in law enforcement. The Select Committee focused its attention for most of 1957 on

12036-535: The United States Supreme Court . Kennedy went on to work as an aide to Adlai Stevenson II during the 1956 presidential election which helped him learn how national campaigns worked, in preparation for a future run by his brother, John. Unimpressed with Stevenson, he reportedly voted for incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower . Kennedy was also a Massachusetts delegate at the 1956 Democratic National Convention , having replaced Tip O'Neil at

12240-454: The 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther (president 1946–1970). It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers , but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into

12444-486: The 1967 Six-Day War . Kennedy died 25 hours later. Sirhan was arrested, tried, and convicted, though Kennedy's assassination, like his brother's , continues to be the subject of widespread analysis and numerous conspiracy theories . Robert Francis Kennedy was born outside Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts , on November 20, 1925, to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. , a politician and businessman, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy ,

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12648-417: The 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy , he was a prominent member of the Democratic Party and is considered an icon of modern American liberalism . Born into

12852-470: The Committee on Government Operations. During its existence, the Select Committee conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings with 1,526 witnesses (343 of whom invoked the Fifth Amendment), compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony, and issued two interim and one final report. At its peak, 104 persons were engaged in the work of

13056-637: The Communist Party. Kennedy revealed that Cohn had called the wrong Annie Lee Moss and he requested the file on Moss from the FBI. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had been forewarned by Cohn and denied him access, calling Kennedy "an arrogant whippersnapper". When Democrats gained a Senate majority in January 1955, Kennedy became chief counsel and was a background figure in the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954 into McCarthy's conduct. The Moss incident turned Cohn into an enemy, which led to Kennedy assisting Democratic senators in ridiculing Cohn during

13260-847: The Freedom Riders out of jail, but they refused, which upset him. On May 29, 1961, Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to issue regulations banning segregation, and the ICC subsequently decreed that by November 1, bus carriers and terminals serving interstate travel had to be integrated. Kennedy's attempts to end the Freedom Rides early were tied to an upcoming summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. He believed

13464-476: The IRS to settle tax issues, commitment to independent oversight for six years, and a referendum that reformed the election mode for leadership. The "One Member One Vote" referendum vote in 2022 determined that UAW members could directly elect the members of the UAW International Executive Board (IEB), the highest ruling body of the UAW. Shawn Fain was elected president in March 2023. A strike against all big three automakers began on September 15, 2023, for

13668-426: The International Motor Vehicle Program said. According to the 2007 GM Annual Report, typical autoworkers earned a base wage of approximately $ 28 per hour. Following the 2007 National Agreement, the base starting wage was lowered to about $ 15 per hour. A second-tier wage of $ 14.50 an hour, which applies only to newly hired workers, is lower than the average wage in non-union auto companies in the Deep South . One of

13872-415: The Justice Department between 1961 and 1963 be handled "through negotiation between the city commission and Negro citizens". Kennedy played a large role in the response to the Freedom Riders protests. He acted after the Anniston bus bombing to protect the Riders in continuing their journey, sending John Seigenthaler , his administrative assistant, to Alabama to try to calm the situation. Kennedy called

14076-412: The Justice Department for prosecution, but the department refused to do so because it concluded that nearly all the legal cases were significantly flawed. A frustrated Robert Kennedy publicly complained about the Justice Department's decisions in September 1958. Chief Counsel Kennedy resolved to investigate a wide range of labor unions and corporations, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,

14280-416: The Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act was signed into law. Kennedy expressed the administration's commitment to civil rights during a May 6, 1961, speech at the University of Georgia School of Law : Our position is quite clear. We are upholding the law. The federal government would not be running the schools in Prince Edward County any more than it is running the University of Georgia or

14484-424: The Kennedy-Ervin bill as well as several unrelated provisions restricting union organizing, picketing, and boycott activity. A conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate bills began meeting on August 18, 1959. On September 3 and 4, the House and Senate passed the conference committee bill, which was far closer to the original Landrum-Griffin bill than the Kennedy-Ervin bill, and President Eisenhower signed

14688-562: The Mafia's gambling operations. Convictions against organized crime figures rose by 800 percent during his term. Kennedy worked to shift Hoover's focus away from communism, which Hoover saw as a more serious threat, to organized crime. According to James Neff , Kennedy's success in this endeavor was due to his brother's position, giving the attorney general leverage over Hoover. Biographer Richard Hack concluded that Hoover's dislike for Kennedy came from his being unable to control him. He

14892-745: The McClellan Committee by their focus on Hoffa and the Teamsters. They believed Kennedy covered for Walter Reuther and the United Automobile Workers (UAW), a union which typically would back Democratic office seekers. Amidst the allegations, Kennedy wrote in his journal that the two senators had "no guts" as they never addressed him directly, only through the press. Although the Rackets investigations produced few criminal prosecutions, glossy magazines began running glowing spreads: Life ("Young Man with Tough Questions" ) and

15096-618: The Midwestern United States and Canada, had been impacted economically from losses in jobs and income. This peaked with the near-bankruptcy of Chrysler in 1979. In 1985 the union's Canadian division disaffiliated from the UAW over a dispute regarding negotiation tactics and formed the Canadian Auto Workers as an independent union. Specifically the Canadian division claimed they were being used to pressure

15300-423: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (of which he was chair) to pushing anti-organized crime agenda in 1960s, and his efforts kept the issue alive despite the prominence of other issues such as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War . When limited jurisdiction over organized crime was transferred to the Committee on Government Operations after the disbandment of the Select Committee, Senator McClellan held

15504-643: The Select Committee had reached the limits of its jurisdiction and no further investigations were made. By September 1959, it was clear that the Select Committee was not developing additional information to justify continued operation. A second interim report was released in August 1959 once again denouncing the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa. Robert F. Kennedy resigned as the Select Committee's chief counsel on September 11, 1959, and joined Senator John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign as campaign manager. Committee members became more involved in passing legislation to deal with

15708-418: The Select Committee's existence in January, giving it additional time for more investigations. This new focus was a natural outgrowth of the committee's previous investigations, but it also reflected the committee's frustration at uncovering no additional scandals like the one which had rocked the Teamsters. Through much of the spring and summer of 1959, the committee held a series of public hearings which brought

15912-400: The Select Committee, he was never convicted on any of the charges. Prosecutors and others accused Hoffa of jury tampering and suborning witnesses in order to beat conviction, but these charges also were never proven in a court of law. After he became U.S. Attorney General in January 1961, Robert F. Kennedy formed a "get Hoffa squad" whose mission was to identify additional evidence and secure

16116-422: The Senate as early as May 1957. Among the more prominent bills was one submitted in 1958 by Senators John F. Kennedy and Irving Ives (with assistance from nationally known labor law professor Archibald Cox ) which covered 30 areas, including union recordkeeping, finances, and democratic organizational structures and rules. The Kennedy-Ives bill proved immensely controversial, leading to the longest Senate debate of

16320-521: The Senate committee chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy . He gained national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959, where he publicly challenged Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa over the union's corrupt practices. Kennedy resigned from the committee to conduct his brother's successful campaign in the 1960 presidential election . He was appointed United States attorney general at

16524-473: The Senate established on January 30, 1957, an entirely new committee, the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, and gave it broad subpoena and investigative powers. The new select committee was given a year to complete its work, and charged with studying the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers. Half

16728-415: The Senate majority secretary and a protégé of Lyndon Johnson, president-elect Kennedy did not want to name his brother attorney general, but their father overruled him. At the behest of vice president-elect Johnson, Baker persuaded the influential Southern senator Richard Russell Jr. to allow a voice vote to confirm the president's brother in January 1961, as Kennedy "would have been lucky to get 40 votes" on

16932-577: The South and warned of the danger of racial tensions above the Mason–Dixon line. "In the North", he said, "I think you have had de facto segregation , which in some areas is bad or even more extreme than in the South", adding that people in "those communities, including my own state of Massachusetts, concentrated on what was happening in Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi, and didn't look at what

17136-459: The Soviet Union. The assassination was judged as having a profound impact on Kennedy. Michael Beran assesses the assassination as having moved Kennedy away from reliance on the political system and to become more questioning. Larry Tye views Kennedy following the death of his brother as "more fatalistic, having seen how fast he could lose what he cherished the most." In the wake of the assassination of his brother and Lyndon Johnson's ascension to

17340-434: The Teamsters and other unions that he had helped investigate. Kennedy went to work on the presidential campaign of his brother, John. In contrast to his role in his brother's previous campaign eight years prior, Kennedy gave stump speeches throughout the primary season, gaining confidence as time went on. His strategy "to win at any cost" led him to call on Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. to attack Senator Hubert Humphrey as

17544-413: The Teamsters more than $ 700,000. Beck appeared before the Select Committee for the first time on March 25, 1957, and notoriously invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 117 times. Beck was called before the McClellan Committee again in May 1957, and additional interest-free loans and other potentially illegal and unethical financial transactions exposed. Based on these revelations, Beck

17748-634: The Teamsters union. Teamsters President Dave Beck fled the country for a month to avoid its subpoenas before returning in March 1957. The Select Committee had a difficult time investigating the Teamsters. Four of the paper locals were dissolved to avoid committee scrutiny, several Teamster staffers provided verbal testimony which differed substantially from their prior written statements (the Select Committee eventually charged six of them with contempt of Congress ), and union records were lost or destroyed (allegedly on purpose). In Oregon, The Oregonian newspaper ran

17952-630: The Teamsters' pension fund , and sentenced to five years in prison. Hoffa spent the next three years unsuccessfully appealing his 1964 convictions, and began serving his aggregate prison sentence of 13 years (eight years for bribery, five years for fraud) on March 7, 1967, at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. In his first press conference as attorney general in 1961, Kennedy spoke of an "alarming increase" in juvenile delinquency . In May 1961, Kennedy

18156-614: The Teamsters) and accused the Teamsters of gathering enough power to destroy the national economy. Refocusing its attention back on the Teamsters, the Select Committee held a short set of hearings in August 1958 intended to expose corruption by the Hoffa regime. But a number of witnesses recanted their written testimony and the hearings led nowhere. In February 1959, the Select Committee's attention turned to an investigation of organized crime. McClellan had won yet another one-year extension of

18360-619: The Truman administration before a Brooklyn grand jury. On June 6, 1952, he resigned to manage his brother John's U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts . JFK's victory was of great importance to the Kennedys, elevating him to national prominence and turning him into a serious potential presidential candidate. John's victory was also equally important to Robert, who felt he had succeeded in eliminating his father's negative perceptions of him. In December 1952, at his father's behest, Kennedy

18564-499: The UAW in February 1958. The five-week series of hearings produced no evidence of corruption. A second set of hearings into the UAW in September 1959 lasted just six days, and once more uncovered no evidence of UAW malfeasance. The September 1959 hearings were the last public hearings the embarrassed committee ever held. As the UAW hearings were winding down, the Select Committee issued its first Interim Report on March 24, 1958. The report roundly condemned Jimmy Hoffa (by now president of

18768-508: The UAW used the rhetoric of civic or liberal nationalism to fight for the rights of Black workers and other workers of color between the 1930s and 1970s. At the same time, it used this rhetoric to simultaneously rebuff the demands and limit the organizing efforts of Black workers seeking to overcome institutional racial hierarchies in the workplace, housing, and the UAW. The UAW leadership denounced these demands and efforts as antidemocratic and anti-American. Three examples, Williams argues, show how

18972-722: The UAW's use of working class nationalism functioned as a counter subversive tradition within American liberalism: the UAW campaign at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan , in the late 1930s, the 1942 conflict in Detroit over the black occupancy of the Sojourner Truth housing project, and the responses of the UAW under the conservative leadership of Reuther to the demands of Black workers for representation in UAW leadership between

19176-452: The UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!" With the 1973 oil embargo , rising fuel prices caused the U.S. auto makers to lose market share to foreign manufacturers who placed more emphasis on fuel efficiency. This started years of layoffs and wage reductions, and the UAW found itself in the position of giving up many of the benefits it had won for workers over the decades. By the early 1980s, auto producing states, especially in

19380-582: The Volkswagen (VW) Chattanooga, Tennessee plant voted to join the UAW, the union's first victory in the South outside Detroit's Big Three. District 65, a former affiliate of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union that included as a predecessor the United Office and Professional Workers of America , merged into the UAW in 1989. In 2008, the 6,500 postdoctoral scholars (postdocs) at

19584-628: The abuses uncovered. Although his committee had already been dissolved by 1960, McClellan began a related three-year investigation in 1963 into the union benefit plans of labor leader George Barasch , alleging misuse and diversion of $ 4,000,000 of benefit funds. McClellan's notable failure to find any legal wrongdoing led to his introduction of several pieces of new legislation including McClellan's own bill on October 12, 1965, setting new fiduciary standards for plan trustees. Senator Jacob K. Javits (R) of New York also introduced bills in 1965 and 1967 increasing regulation on welfare and pension funds to limit

19788-421: The admittance of the institution's first African American student, James Meredith . The attorney general had hoped that legal means, along with the escort of federal officers, would be enough to force Governor Ross Barnett to allow Meredith's admission. He also was very concerned there might be a "mini-civil war" between federal troops and armed protesters. President Kennedy reluctantly sent federal troops after

19992-531: The age of 35, one of the youngest cabinet members in American history. Kennedy served as John's closest advisor until the latter's assassination in 1963 . Kennedy's tenure is known for advocating for the civil rights movement , the fight against organized crime , and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba . He authored his account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in a book titled Thirteen Days . As attorney general, Kennedy authorized

20196-424: The allegation, saying that John had never had "an ailment described classically as Addison's disease." After securing the nomination, John Kennedy nonetheless chose Johnson as his vice-presidential nominee. Robert, who favored labor leader Walter Reuther, tried unsuccessfully to convince Johnson to turn down the offer, leading him to view Robert with contempt afterward. Robert had already disliked Johnson prior to

20400-595: The antagonistic argument that marked Hoffa's testimony. Kennedy's investigations convinced him that Hoffa had worked with mobsters, extorted money from employers, and raided Teamster pension funds. During the hearings, Kennedy received criticism from liberal critics and other commentators both for his outburst of impassioned anger and doubts about the innocence of those who invoked the Fifth Amendment . Senators Barry Goldwater and Karl Mundt wrote to each other and complained about "the Kennedy boys" having hijacked

20604-404: The auto industry rebound in the 21st century and blamed for seeking generous benefit packages in the past which in part led to the automotive industry crisis of 2008–10 . UAW workers receiving generous benefit packages when compared with those working at non-union Japanese auto assembly plants in the U.S., had been cited as a primary reason for the cost differential before the 2009 restructuring. In

20808-420: The behavior of companies such as Morton Packing Company, Continental Baking Company , and Sears, Roebuck and Company . While continuing to investigate and hold hearings on other unions and corporations, the McClellan Committee also began to examine the behavior of Jimmy Hoffa and other Teamsters officials. Senator McClellan accused Hoffa of attempting to gain control of the nation's economy and set himself up as

21012-448: The benefits negotiated by the United Auto Workers was the former jobs bank program, under which laid-off members once received 95 percent of their take-home pay and benefits. More than 12,000 UAW members were paid this benefit in 2005. In December 2008, the UAW agreed to suspend the program as a concession to help U.S. automakers during the auto industry crisis. UAW leadership granted concessions to its unions in order to win labor peace,

21216-443: The bill into law on September 14, 1959. After the Select Committee's mandate expired, Senator McClellan and others advocated that the Senate expand the jurisdiction of one or more committees not only to provide oversight of the new labor law but also to continue the Senate's investigations into organized crime. McClellan originally sought jurisdiction for his own Committee on Government Operations, but members of his committee balked at

21420-632: The brunt of organized labor's outrage, while McClellan would be free to pursue an anti-labor legislative agenda once the hearings began to draw to a close. Republican members of the Select Committee voiced strong disagreement with McClellan's decision to let Kennedy set the direction for the committee and ask most of the questions, but McClellan largely ignored their protests. Robert Kennedy proved to be an inexpert interrogator, fumbling questions and engaging in shouting matches with witnesses rather than laying out legal cases against them. McClellan and Kennedy's goal had been to refer nearly all their investigations to

21624-512: The building until the U.S. Marshals and National Guard he sent had secured the area. King proceeded to berate Kennedy for "allowing the situation to continue". King later publicly thanked him for dispatching the forces to break up the attack that might otherwise have ended his life. Kennedy then negotiated the safe passage of the Freedom Riders from the First Baptist Church to Jackson, where they were arrested. He offered to bail

21828-483: The charter as a means of extorting money from a wide variety of employers. The 1957 hearings opened with a focus on corruption in Portland, Oregon, and featured the testimony of Portland crime boss Jim Elkins . With the support of 70 hours of taped conversations, Elkins described being approached by two Seattle gangsters about working with the Teamsters to take over Portland vice operations. The colorful testimony brought

22032-594: The city and helped repair the strained relationship between the administration and its special envoy in Berlin, Lucius D. Clay . As his brother's confidant, Kennedy oversaw the CIA 's anti- Castro activities after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba , which included covert operations that targeted Cuban civilians . He also helped develop the strategy during the Cuban Missile Crisis to blockade Cuba instead of initiating

22236-401: The committee for not having a neutral attitude toward labor. Only three of the committee's eight members looked on organized labor favorably, and only one of them (Senator Patrick McNamara) was strongly pro-labor. The committee's other five members were strongly pro-management, and that included Senator McClellan. McClellan hired Robert F. Kennedy , a 31-year-old attorney from Massachusetts , as

22440-519: The committee on March 31, 1958, to protest the Select Committee's rough treatment of union witnesses. He was replaced by Democratic Senator Frank Church. The Select Committee's chair was Senator John L. McClellan. With the retirement of Senator Irving Ives from the Senate in December 1958, the new vice chair became Senator Karl E. Mundt. Senator Homer E. Capehart joined the committee to keep the partisan balance. Senator John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas)

22644-401: The committee to view corruption in labor-management relations as a problem with unions, not management, and management as nothing more than a victim. Senator McClellan gave Robert Kennedy extensive control over the scheduling of testimonies, areas of investigation, and questioning of witnesses. This suited McClellan, a conservative Democrat and opponent of labor unions: Robert Kennedy would take

22848-402: The committee's investigations national media attention from the outset. As 1.2 million viewers watched on live television, evidence was unearthed over the next few weeks of a mob-sponsored plot in which Oregon Teamsters unions would seize control of the state legislature , state police , and state attorney general's office through bribery, extortion and blackmail. On March 14, 1957, Jimmy Hoffa

23052-407: The committee's list of priorities, and there were no staff assigned to investigate the issue. Under the new guidelines, the Select Committee's schedule of hearings slowed. In January 1958, Chairman McClellan asked for and received permission from the Senate to extend the deadline for completing the committee's work for another year. For a short time early in the year, the Select Committee investigated

23256-777: The committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staffers were delegated to the committee by the Government Accounting Office and worked in Detroit , Chicago , New York City, and southern Florida . To accommodate the huge staff, a corridor was blocked off in the Old Senate Office Building and turned into a suite of offices. Some observers continued to criticize the Select Committee. In 1961, Yale Law professor Alexander Bickel accused Kennedy of being punitive and battering witnesses, compared his tactics to those of Joseph McCarthy, and declared Kennedy unfit to be Attorney General. At

23460-504: The companies for extra benefits, which went mostly to the American members. The UAW saw a loss of membership after the 1970s. Membership topped 1.5 million in 1979, falling to 540,000 in 2006. With the late-2000s recession and automotive industry crisis of 2008–10 , GM and Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Membership fell to 390,000 active members in 2010, with more than 600,000 retired members covered by pension and medical care plans. UAW has been credited for aiding in

23664-401: The considerably higher labor costs, falling considerably behind in the sedan market segments to Japanese and European automakers. The UAW has tried to expand membership by organizing the employees outside of the Big Three. In 2010, Bob King hired Richard Bensinger to organize Japanese, Korean, and German transplant factories in the United States. In a representational election following

23868-496: The consumer with each contract, with limited success. An agreement on profit sharing with American Motors led nowhere, because profits were small at this minor player. The UAW expanded its scope to include workers in other major industries such as the aerospace and agricultural-implement industries. The UAW disaffiliated from the AFL–CIO on July 1, 1968, after Reuther and AFL–CIO President George Meany could not come to agreement on

24072-468: The continued international publicity of race riots would tarnish the president heading into international negotiations. This attempt to curtail the Freedom Rides alienated many civil rights leaders who, at the time, perceived him as intolerant and narrow-minded. Historian David Halberstam wrote that the race question was for a long time a minor ethnic political issue in Massachusetts where the Kennedy brothers came from, and had they been from another part of

24276-502: The control of plan trustees and administrators. Provisions from all three bills ultimately evolved into the guidelines enacted in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) . The final report of the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management was issued on March 31, 1960. At that time, the authority granted by the Senate to the Select Committee was transferred to

24480-684: The convention that concluded the Treaty of Peace with Japan . In 1951, Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar . That November, he started work as a lawyer in the Internal Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice , which prosecuted espionage and subversive-activity cases. In February 1952, he was transferred to the Criminal Division to help prepare fraud cases against former officials of

24684-665: The counsel of his younger brother, with Robert being the president's closest adviser and confidant. Kennedy exercised widespread authority over every cabinet department, leading the Associated Press to dub him "Bobby—Washington's No. 2-man." The president once remarked about his brother, "If I want something done and done immediately I rely on the Attorney General. He is very much the doer in this administration, and has an organizational gift I have rarely if ever seen surpassed." As attorney general, Kennedy pursued

24888-644: The country and hit a peak membership of over a million members in 1944. That same year, Lillian Hatcher was appointed the first Black female international representative of the UAW. The UAW struck GM for 113 days, beginning in November 1945, demanding a greater voice in management. GM would pay higher wages but refused to consider power sharing; the union finally settled with an eighteen-and-a-half-cent wage increase but little more. The UAW went along with GM in return for an ever-increasing packages of wage and benefit hikes through collective bargaining, with no help from

25092-515: The country, "they might have been more immediately sensitive to the complexities and depth of black feelings". In an attempt to better understand and improve race relations, Kennedy held a private meeting on May 24, 1963, in New York City with a black delegation coordinated by prominent author James Baldwin . The meeting became antagonistic, and the group reached no consensus. The black delegation generally felt that Kennedy did not understand

25296-418: The crisis in a book titled Thirteen Days (posthumously published in 1969). At a summit meeting with Japanese prime minister Hayato Ikeda in Washington D.C. in 1961, President Kennedy promised to make a reciprocal visit to Japan in 1962, but the decision to resume atmospheric nuclear testing forced him to postpone such a visit, and he sent Robert in his stead. Kennedy arrived in Tokyo in February 1962 at

25500-427: The days after the assassination of his brother. He was to go there for the purposes of cultural diplomacy but was also told to meet with Russian diplomat Georgi Bolshakov and deliver a message. Walton told Bolshakov that Robert and Jackie Kennedy believed there was a conspiracy involved in the killing of President Kennedy and informed him that Robert Kennedy shared the views of his brother in his approach to peace with

25704-457: The director "in a way that he couldn't lie to me, and they [the CIA] hadn't". An hour after the president was shot, Robert Kennedy received a phone call from the newly ascended President Johnson before Johnson boarded Air Force One . RFK remembered their conversation starting with Johnson demonstrating sympathy before the president stated his belief that he should be sworn in immediately; RFK opposed

25908-576: The end of the British Mandate , provided a first-hand view of the tensions in the land. He was critical of British policy on Palestine and praised the Jewish people he met there, calling them "hardy and tough." Kennedy predicted that "before too long," the United States and Great Britain would be looking for a Jewish state to preserve a "toehold" of democracy in the region. He held out some hope after seeing Arabs and Jews working side by side but, in

26112-516: The end, feared that the hatred between the groups was too strong and would lead to a war. In June 1948, Kennedy reported on the Berlin Blockade . He wrote home about the experience: "It is a very moving and disturbing sight to see plane after plane take off amidst a torrent of rain particularly when I was aboard one." In September 1951, a few months after Kennedy graduated from law school, The Boston Post sent him to San Francisco to cover

26316-470: The eventual vice-presidential nominee. The potential need for a Johnson–Kennedy ticket was ultimately eliminated by the Republican nomination of conservative Barry Goldwater . With Goldwater as his opponent, Johnson's choice of vice president was all but irrelevant; opinion polls had revealed that, while Kennedy was an overwhelming first choice among Democrats, any choice made less than a 2% difference in

26520-475: The factory across the entire supply chain: "just as a militant minority could stop production in an entire plant, so if the plant was a key link in an integrated corporate empire, its occupation could paralyze the corporation." After winning sitdown strikes at General Motors (GM) plants in Atlanta and Kansas City, the UAW began to demand to represent General Motors workers nationwide. Their efforts culminated in

26724-531: The family and wrote him off; focusing greater attention on his two eldest sons, Joseph Jr., and John. His parents involved their children in discussions of history and current affairs at the family dinner table. "I can hardly remember a mealtime," Kennedy reflected, "when the conversation was not dominated by what Franklin D. Roosevelt was doing or what was happening in the world...Since public affairs had dominated so much of our actions and discussions, public life seemed really an extension of family life." Kennedy

26928-402: The famous Flint sit-down strike , which began on December 30, 1936. By January 25, strikes and the effects of production shutdowns idled 150,000 workers at fifty General Motors plants from California to New York. Strikers repelled the efforts of the police and National Guard to retake them. On February 11, 1937, General Motors agreed to bargain with the UAW, and eventually recognized the UAW as

27132-681: The first time in UAW history. After nearly a month and a half of strikes, UAW was able to reach an agreement with all three carmakers after securing record concessions from them. After the success of the strike, in November 2023, the UAW announced that it was launching a simultaneous campaign to unionize 150,000 workers at other automakers with plants in the United States: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla , Toyota, Volkswagen , and Volvo. The UAW represented 145,000 at GM, Ford & Stellantis. In April 2024, after two failed attempts, 73% of workers at

27336-429: The full extent of racism in the United States, and only alienated the group more when he tried to compare his family's experience with discrimination as Irish Catholics to the racial injustice faced by African Americans. In September 1962, Kennedy sent a force of U.S. Marshals, U.S. Border Patrol agents, and deputized federal prison guards to the University of Mississippi , to enforce a federal court order allowing

27540-460: The government. Walter Reuther won the election for president at the UAW's constitutional convention in 1946 and served until his death in an airplane accident in May 1970. Reuther led the union during one of the most prosperous periods for workers in U.S. history. Immediately after the war, left-wing elements demanded "30–40", which is a 30-hour week for 40 hours pay. Reuther rejected 30–40 and decided to concentrate on total annual wages, displaying

27744-535: The hearings that a worried Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. rushed to Washington, D.C. to see for himself if Robert Kennedy was endangering John Kennedy's political future. During much of the summer and fall of 1957, the Select Committee investigated corruption in the Bakery Workers Union , United Textile Workers , Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union , and Transport Workers Union . In the late fall, the committee focused its attention on union-busting, and examined

27948-455: The hearings. The animosity grew to the point where Cohn had to be restrained after asking Kennedy if he wanted to fight him. For his work on the McCarthy committee, Kennedy was included in a list of Ten Outstanding Young Men of 1954, created by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. His father had arranged the nomination, his first national award. In 1955, Kennedy was admitted to practice before

28152-473: The idea since he felt "it would be nice" for President Kennedy's body to return to Washington with the deceased president still being the incumbent. Eventually, the two concluded that the best course of action would be for Johnson to take the oath of office before returning to Washington. In his 1971 book We Band of Brothers , aide Edwin O. Guthman recounted Kennedy admitting to him an hour after receiving word of his brother's death that he thought he would be

28356-459: The immediate creation of an automobile workers' union covering the entire industry . After the Toledo local led an unauthorized but successful strike against General Motors (GM), the AFL caved to pressure and called for a convention. The UAW's founding convention began on August 26, 1935 in Detroit. The total membership of its constituent unions was 25,769. The AFL attempted to keep control of

28560-462: The incident reached the press and helped turn public opinion against the company. However, Ford continued to refuse to sign a contract. The UAW's cause was hindered by its weakness with Black workers. Older Black workers felt loyalty to Henry Ford because he had hired and paid them well at a time when other auto companies would not. Furthermore, many feared that Black workers were being asked to risk their jobs but would be "pushed aside and ignored" once

28764-464: The legal office. Walter Reuther at times cooperated closely with the Communists, but he and his allies formed strategically an anticommunist current within the UAW. The UAW discovered that it had to be able to uphold its side of a bargain if it was to be a successful bargaining agency with a corporation, which meant that wildcat strikes and disruptive behavior by union members had to be stopped by

28968-564: The membership was drawn from the Committee on Government Operations and half from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare . McClellan, Ervin, McCarthy, and Mundt were drawn from Government Operations, and Kennedy, McNamara, Ives, and Goldwater from Labor. An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the Select Committee. Senator McClellan was named chair of the Select Committee, and Republican Senator Irving Ives of New York vice chair. Democrats and liberals , primarily, criticized

29172-423: The mid-1940s and the 1960s. See also League of Revolutionary Black Workers and Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement for the history of Black workers who questioned the corrupt leadership of the UAW in the 1960s and the 1970s. The UAW was the most instrumental outside financial and operational supporter of the first Earth Day in 1970. According to Denis Hayes , Earth Day's first national coordinator, "Without

29376-415: The nature of the UAW's organizing. The UAW's executive board voted to make a "no strike" pledge to ensure that the war effort would not be hindered by strikes. A vehement minority opposed the decision, but the pledge was later reaffirmed by the membership. As war production ramped up and auto factories converted to tank building, the UAW organized new locals in these factories and airplane manufacturers across

29580-447: The new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The UAW's fortunes began to improve after it began organizing on an industrial basis. The union found rapid success with the sitdown strike , a tactic where workers "sit down" at their work stations to occupy a factory. Sitdown strikes enabled small numbers of workers to interrupt the assembly line and stop production across an entire plant. Likewise, it projected power outwards from

29784-658: The news. Shortly after the call from Hoover, Kennedy phoned McGeorge Bundy at the White House, instructing him to change the locks on the president's files. He ordered the Secret Service to dismantle the hidden taping system in the Oval Office and cabinet room. He scheduled a meeting with CIA director John McCone and asked if the CIA had any involvement in his brother's death. McCone denied it, with Kennedy later telling investigator Walter Sheridan that he asked

29988-410: The one "they would get" as opposed to his brother. In the days following the assassination, he wrote letters to his two eldest children, Kathleen and Joseph, saying that as the oldest Kennedy family members of their generation, they had a special responsibility to remember what their uncle had started and to love and serve their country. He was originally opposed to Jacqueline Kennedy's decision to have

30192-446: The other two absorb its sales. Besides high hourly wage rates and paid vacations, in 1950, Reuther negotiated an industry first contract with General Motors known as Reuther's Treaty of Detroit . The UAW negotiated employer-funded pensions at Chrysler, medical insurance at GM, and in 1955 supplementary unemployment benefits at Ford. Many smaller suppliers followed suit with benefits. Reuther tried to negotiate lower automobile prices for

30396-436: The paper locals applied for charters from the international union, Hoffa's political foes were outraged. A major battle broke out within the Teamsters over whether to charter the locals, and the media attention led to investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Beck and other Teamster leaders subsequently challenged the authority of the Permanent Subcommittee to investigate

30600-721: The particulars of the Harvey -Rosselli operation – or want to." Concurrently, Kennedy served as the president's personal representative in Operation Mongoose , the post–Bay of Pigs covert operations program the president established in November 1961. Mongoose was meant to incite revolution in Cuba that would result in Castro's downfall. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Kennedy proved himself to be

30804-574: The passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. AFL president William Green decided to begin an organizing drive among unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Green planned to recruit workers at each factory into a temporary "federal labor union" (FLU), whose members would then be divided up amongst the AFL's various craft unions. He sent William Collins to Detroit to organize automobile workers. Collins' efforts were hampered by an insufficiently militant program,

31008-440: The presidency, with the office of vice president now vacant, Kennedy was viewed favorably as a potential candidate for the position in the 1964 presidential election. Johnson faced pressure from some within the Democratic Party to name Kennedy as his running mate, which Johnson staffers referred to internally as the "Bobby problem." It was an open secret that they disliked each other, and Johnson had no intention of remaining in

31212-410: The president's direction, Kennedy used the power of federal agencies to influence U.S. Steel not to institute a price increase, and announced a grand jury probe to investigate possible collusion and price fixing by U.S. Steel in collaboration with other major steel manufacturers. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had set prices of steel "by naked power, by threats, by agents of

31416-469: The presidential campaign, seeing him as a threat to his brother's ambitions. In October, just a few weeks before the election, Kennedy was involved in securing the release of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from a jail in Atlanta . He spoke with Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver and later Judge Oscar Mitchell, after the judge had sentenced King for violating his probation when he protested at

31620-438: The prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts , Kennedy attended Harvard University , and later received his law degree from the University of Virginia . He began his career as a correspondent for The Boston Post and as a lawyer at the Justice Department , but later resigned to manage his brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1952 . The following year, Kennedy worked as an assistant counsel to

31824-477: The request of his brother John, joining in what was ultimately an unsuccessful effort to help JFK get the vice-presidential nomination . From 1957 to 1959, he made a name for himself while serving as the chief counsel to the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (also known as the Senate Rackets Committee) under chairman John L. McClellan . Kennedy

32028-422: The request. However, McClellan was able to convince the full Senate to impose jurisdiction on Government Operations, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began making inquiries into matters pertaining to syndicated or organized crime. The national attention paid to Robert F. Kennedy during the Select Committee's hearings helped launch his career as a government official and politician. It also earned him

32232-495: The right-to-work legislation that passed over the objection of organized labor in December 2012. The UAW also remains a major player in the state Democratic Party. In March 2020, the Detroit United Auto Workers union announced that after discussion with the leaders of General Motors , Ford , and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles , the carmakers would partially shut down factories on a "rotating" basis to combat

32436-464: The schools in my home state of Massachusetts. In this case, in all cases, I say to you today that if the orders of the court are circumvented, the Department of Justice will act. We will not stand by or be aloof—we will move. I happen to believe that the 1954 decision was right. But my belief does not matter. It is now the law. Some of you may believe the decision was wrong. That does not matter. It

32640-567: The shadow of another Kennedy. At the time, Johnson privately said of Kennedy, "I don't need that little runt to win", while Kennedy privately said of Johnson that he was "mean, bitter, vicious—an animal in many ways." An April 1964 Gallup poll reported Kennedy as the vice-presidential choice of 47 percent of Democratic voters. Coming in a distant second and third were Adlai Stevenson with 18 percent and Hubert Humphrey with 10 percent. Although Johnson confided to aides on several occasions that he might be forced to accept Kennedy in order to secure

32844-450: The situation on campus turned violent. The ensuing Ole Miss riot of 1962 resulted in 300 injuries and two deaths, but Kennedy remained adamant that black students had the right to the benefits of all levels of the educational system. Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice and collaborated with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to create the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which helped bring an end to Jim Crow laws . Throughout

33048-525: The spring of 1964, Kennedy worked alongside Senator Hubert Humphrey and Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen in search of language that could work for the Republican caucus and overwhelm the Southern Democrats' filibuster . In May, a deal was secured that could obtain a two-thirds majority in the Senate—enough to end debate. Kennedy did not see the civil rights bill as simply directed at

33252-641: The state security police". Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in The New Republic that the Justice Department had violated civil liberties by calling a federal grand jury to indict U.S. Steel so quickly, then disbanding it after the price increase did not occur. As one of the president's closest White House advisers, Kennedy played a crucial role in the events surrounding the Berlin Crisis of 1961 . Operating mainly through

33456-663: The student in an impromptu debate. Kennedy's calmness under fire and willingness to take the student's questions seriously won many admirers in Japan and praise from the Japanese media, both for himself and on his brother's behalf. When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Robert Kennedy was at home with aides from the Justice Department. J. Edgar Hoover called and told him his brother had been shot. Hoover then hung up before he could ask any questions. Kennedy later said he thought Hoover had enjoyed telling him

33660-519: The subcommittee's chief counsel and investigator. Kennedy, too, did not have a neutral opinion of labor unions. Appalled by stories he had heard about union intimidation on the West Coast , Kennedy undertook the chief counsel's job determined to root out union malfeasance and with little knowledge or understanding of or even concern over management misbehavior. The biases of the Select Committee members and its chief counsel, some observers concluded, led

33864-573: The suspected associations. In response, King agreed to ask suspected communist Jack O'Dell to resign from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), but he refused to heed to the request to ask Stanley Levison , whom he regarded as a trusted advisor, to resign. In October 1963, Kennedy issued a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the SCLC, King's civil rights organization. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on

34068-424: The ten campuses of the University of California , who, combined, account for 10% of the postdocs in the US, voted to affiliate with the UAW, creating the largest union for postdoctoral scholars in the country: UAW Local 5810 . The expansion of UAW to academic circles, postdoctoral researchers in particular, was significant in that the move helped secure advances in pay that made unionized academic researchers among

34272-685: The train window. "Couldn't something be done about the poor people living in those bleak tenements?" he asked. Six weeks before his 18th birthday in 1943, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve as a seaman apprentice . He was released from active duty in March 1944, when he left Milton Academy early to report to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts from March to November 1944. He

34476-407: The turn of the century, historians and biographers continued to criticize the Select Committee's lack of respect for the constitutional rights of witnesses brought before it. Several historic legal developments came out of the select committee's investigation, including a U.S. Supreme Court decision and landmark labor legislation. The right of union officials to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights

34680-483: The two of them as "misfits", a commonality that drew him to Kennedy, along with an unwillingness to conform to how others acted even if doing so meant not being accepted. He had an early sense of virtue; he disliked dirty jokes and bullying, once stepping in when an upperclassman tried bothering a younger student. The headmaster at Milton would later summarize that he was a "very intelligent boy, quiet and shy, but not outstanding, and he left no special mark on Milton". As

34884-490: The union by arguing that the Senate's Labor and Public Welfare Committee had jurisdiction over labor racketeering, not Government Operations. McClellan objected to the transfer of his investigation to the Labor Committee because he felt the Labor chairman, Senator John F. Kennedy , was too close to union leaders and would not thoroughly investigate organized labor. To solve its jurisdictional and political problems,

35088-410: The union by pushing through a charter that denied the rank-and-file the right to elect their own officers. Militant local unions quickly managed to overturn that situation, and the struggle alienated the UAW from the AFL leadership. The UAW joined John L. Lewis 's caucus of industrial unions, the Committee for Industrial Organization, in 1936. When the AFL expelled the industrial unions in 1938, it joined

35292-461: The union had secured their votes. It took four years of organizing efforts for the UAW to win the right to represent Ford employees. On May 21, 1941, following a strike at Ford's Rouge plant , a decisive majority of employees, including most Black employees, voted to join the UAW. The UAW extracted a better deal from Ford than from other automakers, including pay increases, a closed shop , and rehiring of pro-union workers. The agreement also included

35496-440: The union itself. According to one writer, many UAW members were extreme individualists who did not like being bossed around by company foremen or by union agents. Leaders of the UAW realized that they had to control the shop floor, as Reuther explained in 1939: "We must demonstrate that we are a disciplined, responsible organization; we not only have power, but that we have power under control.". World War II dramatically changed

35700-532: The verge of sending Jimmy Hoffa to jail as well, but the committee had also been strongly criticized for its handling of witnesses and its apparent one-sidedness in exposing union but not management corruption. To guide the Select Committee's investigations in the future, McClellan established a set of eleven areas of investigation for the committee, nine of which involved labor misdeeds and only one of which involved management misbehavior (preventing workers from organizing unions). The management-oriented area came last on

35904-528: The workforce to participate in meetings, with higher access tiers for groups representing 30% and 45% of employees. This prompted anti-UAW workers who opposed the first vote to form a rival union, the American Council of Employees. In December 2014 the UAW was certified as representing more than 45% of employees. The union engages in Michigan state politics. President King was a vocal opponent of

36108-567: The year, and the greatest number of amendments and floor votes any piece of legislation that year. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower opposed the bill and it died when the Congressional session ended in December 1958. Kennedy reintroduced the bill, with some additional provisions, in 1959. Although Ives had retired from the Senate, Senator Sam Ervin agreed to co-sponsor the revised bill. The Kennedy-Ervin bill also encountered stiff opposition, and Republicans were able to win Senate approval of

36312-668: Was a " carpetbagger " from Massachusetts . In office, Kennedy opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and raised awareness of poverty by sponsoring legislation designed to lure private business to blighted communities (i.e., Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration project ). He was an advocate for issues related to human rights and social justice by traveling abroad to eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa , and formed working relationships with Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez , and Walter Reuther . In 1968 , Kennedy became

36516-598: Was adrift while trying to prove himself to his family. Kenneth O'Donnell and Larry O'Brien (who worked on John's congressional campaigns) urged Kennedy to consider running for Massachusetts Attorney General in 1954, but he declined. After a period as an assistant to his father on the Hoover Commission , Kennedy rejoined the Senate committee staff as chief counsel for the Democratic minority in February 1954. That month, McCarthy's chief counsel Roy Cohn subpoenaed Annie Lee Moss , accusing her of membership in

36720-441: Was appointed by family friend Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy as one of 15 assistant counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations . Kennedy disapproved of McCarthy's aggressive methods of garnering intelligence on suspected communists. He resigned in July 1953, but "retained a fondness for McCarthy". The period of July 1953 to January 1954 saw him at "a professional and personal nadir", feeling that he

36924-485: Was arrested for allegedly trying to bribe an aide to the Select Committee. Hoffa denied the charges (and was later acquitted), but the arrest triggered additional investigations and more arrests and indictments over the following weeks. Less than a week later, Beck admitted to receiving an interest-free $ 300,000 loan from the Teamsters which he had never repaid, and Select Committee investigators claimed that loans to Beck and other union officials (and their businesses) had cost

37128-622: Was convicted in Chattanooga, Tennessee , of attempted bribery of a grand juror during his 1962 conspiracy trial in Nashville and sentenced to eight years in prison and a $ 10,000 fine. After learning of Hoffa's conviction by telephone, Kennedy issued congratulatory messages to the three prosecutors. While on bail during his appeal, Hoffa was convicted in a second trial held in Chicago , on July 26, 1964, on one count of conspiracy and three counts of mail and wire fraud for improper use of

37332-478: Was deported to Guatemala , while Aiuppa was convicted of violating of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 . In 1961, Kennedy worked to secure the passage of anti-racketeering legislation (Wire Act, Travel Act, and Interstate Transportation of Paraphernalia Act) to prohibit interstate gambling. The Federal Wire Act specifically targeted the use of wire communications and sought to disrupt

37536-566: Was eligible for the American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal . Throughout 1946, Kennedy became active in his brother John's campaign for the U.S. House seat vacated by James Michael Curley ; he joined the campaign full-time after his naval discharge. Schlesinger wrote that the election served as an entry into politics for both Robert and John. In September, Kennedy entered Harvard as

37740-406: Was given authority over testimony scheduling, areas of investigation, and witness questioning by McClellan, a move that was made by the chairman to limit attention to himself and allow outrage by organized labor to be directed toward Kennedy. In a famous scene, Kennedy and his brother John (also a member of the Senate Rackets Committee) squared off with Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa during

37944-440: Was indicted for tax evasion on May 2, 1957. The Beck and Hoffa hearings generated strong criticisms of Robert Kennedy. Many liberal critics said he was a brow-beater, badgerer, insolent, overbearing, intolerant, and even vicious. Hoffa and other witnesses often were able to anger Kennedy to the point where he lost control, and would shout and insult them. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas , one of Robert Kennedy's mentors and

38148-596: Was named chairman of the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime (PCJD), with lifelong friend David Hackett as director. After visits to blighted communities, Kennedy and Hackett concluded that delinquency was the result of racial discrimination and lack of opportunities. The committee held that government must not impose solutions but empower the poor to develop their own. The PCJD provided comprehensive services (education, employment, and job training) that encouraged self-sufficiency. In September 1961,

38352-509: Was needed to be done in our home, our own town, or our own city." The ultimate solution "is a truly major effort at the local level to deal with the racial problem—Negroes and whites working together, within the structure of the law, obedience to the law, and respect for the law." Between December 1961 and December 1963, Kennedy also expanded the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division by 60 percent. At

38556-461: Was not enacted into law many senators nonetheless revised their opinion and now saw him as a serious legislator. This helped remove a major obstacle to Kennedy's political aspirations. Kennedy also used the publicity he gained from the Select Committee's work to launch his own presidential bid in 1960. The work of the Select Committee also was a key turning point in the Senate career of John L. McClellan. McClellan devoted significant time and resources of

38760-481: Was not. The Alliance's initial program was ambitious. Reuther's death in a plane crash on May 9, 1970, near Black Lake, Michigan , dealt a serious blow to the Alliance, and the group halted operations in July 1971 after the Auto Workers (almost bankrupt from a lengthy strike at General Motors ) was unable to continue to fund its operations. In 1948, the UAW founded the radio station WDET 101.9 FM in Detroit. It

38964-468: Was paroled by a federal court in order to testify at the Select Committee's hearings. But in a two-hour appearance before the Select Committee, Dio invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 140 times, and refused to answer any of the committee's questions. But despite the problems encountered in interrogating Dio, the Select Committee developed additional testimony and evidence alleging widespread corruption in Hoffa-controlled Teamster units

39168-399: Was presented in public in August 1957. The worsening corruption scandal led the AFL-CIO to eject the Teamsters on December 6, 1957. As the Hoffa hearings occurred in August 1957, the Select Committee met in executive session to restructure its organizations and set its agenda for the future. The Select Committee had succeeded in securing the removal of Beck as Teamsters president and seemed on

39372-415: Was published in February 1960. The hearings also made Jimmy Hoffa a household name in the United States. The hearings were a critical turning point in Hoffa's career as a labor leader. Bringing down Dave Beck ensured that Hoffa would become president of the Teamsters, an outcome Robert Kennedy later regretted. Although Hoffa was indicted several times in federal and state courts based on evidence uncovered by

39576-454: Was raised at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts ; La Querida in Palm Beach, Florida ; and Bronxville, New York ; as well as London , where his father served as the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St James's from 1938 to 1940. When the Kennedy family returned to the United States just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Robert was shipped off to an assortment of boarding schools in New England : St. Paul's ,

39780-445: Was reelected to the Teamsters presidency, RFK told reporters the government's case against Hoffa had not been changed by what he called "a small group of teamsters" supporting him. The following year, it was leaked that Hoffa had claimed to a Teamster local that Kennedy had been "bodily" removed from his office, the statement being confirmed by a Teamster press agent and Hoffa saying Kennedy had only been ejected. On March 4, 1964, Hoffa

39984-426: Was relentless in his pursuit of Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, due to Hoffa's known corruption in financial and electoral matters, both personally and organizationally, creating a so-called "Get Hoffa" squad of prosecutors and investigators. The enmity between the two men was intense, with accusations of a personal vendetta—what Hoffa called a "blood feud"—exchanged between them. On July 7, 1961, after Hoffa

40188-429: Was relocated to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine from November 1944 to June 1945, where he received a specialized V-12-degree along with 15 others. During the college's winter carnival , Robert built a snow replica of a Navy boat. He returned to Harvard in June 1945, completing his post-training requirements in January 1946. Kennedy's oldest brother Joseph Jr. died in August 1944, when his bomber exploded during

40392-481: Was sold to Wayne State University for $ 1 in 1952. The UAW leadership supported the programs of the New Deal Coalition , strongly supported civil rights, and strongly supported Lyndon Johnson's Great Society . The UAW became strongly anti-communist after it expelled its Communist leaders in the late 1940s following the Taft–Hartley Act , and supported the Vietnam War and opposed the antiwar Democratic candidates. According to political scientist Charles Williams,

40596-399: Was solely responsible for what happened and that he did not have any outside help or assistance. He was a malcontent who could not get along here or in the Soviet Union." He added, "I have not read the report, nor do I intend to. But I have been briefed on it and I am completely satisfied that the Commission investigated every lead and examined every piece of evidence. The Commission's inquiry

40800-450: Was the committee's only chair for its entire history. At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staff were loaned to the committee from the General Accounting Office . Committee staff included: Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK , was an American politician and lawyer. He served as

41004-417: Was the last of the "Big Three" automakers to recognize the UAW. Henry Ford and his security manager, Harry Bennett , used brute force to keep the union out of Ford. They set up the Ford Service Department to spy on and intimidate workers. At the Battle of the Overpass , Ford Service Department personnel beat union organizers in front of news photographers. Despite Ford's attempts to destroy them, photographs of

41208-412: Was thorough and conscientious." After a meeting with Kennedy in 1966, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote: "It is evident that he believes that [the Warren Commission's report] was a poor job and will not endorse it, but that he is unwilling to criticize it and thereby reopen the whole tragic business." According to Soviet archives, William Walton was sent to the Soviet Union by Robert Kennedy in

41412-474: Was upheld and a significant refinement of constitutional law made when the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right of union officials to not divulge the location of union records in Curcio v. United States , 354 U.S. 118 (1957). The scandals uncovered by the Select Committee led directly to passage of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act) in 1959. Calls for legislation and drafts of bills began circulating in

41616-416: Was very awkward ... [a]nd I was pretty quiet most of the time. And I didn't mind being alone." At Milton Academy, Kennedy met and became friends with David Hackett . Hackett admired Kennedy's determination to bypass his shortcomings, and remembered him redoubling his efforts whenever something did not come easy to him, which included athletics, studies, success with girls, and popularity. Hackett remembered

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