“Those Fellows Back There Actually Hate You”

This chapter examines the concerted political backlash against Harold Gibbons, Ernest Calloway, and Teamsters Local 688 that gathered momentum following a dramatic confrontation between the union and St. Louis's criminal underworld. It first provides an overview of organized crime in St. Louis before discussing the circumstances that led Gibbons to forge an alliance with controversial Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. It then considers the 1953 strike waged by Local 682 concrete drivers, along with Gibbons and Calloway's development of the economic foundation central to total person unionism, mainly through their efforts to expand the boundaries of collective bargaining. It also explores how the St. Louis Teamsters's aggressive bargaining, assertive political forays, and seemingly unlimited ambitions triggered a powerful counterattack in the early 1950s, a local microcosm of a broader counterattack against the union that was occurring in many parts of the country.