Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI

by James Neff

The spellbinding saga of Teamster boss Jackie Presser’s rise and fall

In his rise from car thief to president of America’s largest labor union, Jackie Presser used every ounce of his street smarts and rough-edged charisma to get ahead. He also had a lot of help along the way—not just from his father, Bill Presser, a Teamster power broker and thrice-convicted labor racketeer, but also from the Mob and the FBI. At the same time that he was taking orders from the Cleveland Mafia and New York crime boss Fat Tony Salerno, Presser was serving as the FBI’s top informant on organized crime.

Meticulously researched and dramatically told, Mobbed Up is the story of Presser’s precarious balancing act with the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the Justice Department. Drawing on thousands of pages of classified files, James Neff follows the trail of greed, corruption, and hubris all the way to the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, where Bill and Jackie Presser were treated as valued friends. Winner of an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for best reporting on organized crime, it is a tale too astonishing to be made up—and too troubling to be ignored.

Genres: True Crime, Labor, Nonfiction

498 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1989

Reviews

[Badger Bagbane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is interesting, considering I have actually met a couple people who are in the book. This is how I signed the book and became a member of Local 507. I had been working at my new job at Leff Electric for about two weeks back in 1988. I was sitting in the break room when the door opened. There was a tall man in a fedora a trench coat, carrying a large book. Behind him were two large thug looking guys. The man in the fedora ask me if I was William Lahman. I said, 'Yes' and he said 'sign the book'. Suddenly the Christian myth of Satan having people sell their souls by signing a book sprang to my mind. I signed my name and he said 'Welcome to 507' and shook my hand. The man was Harold Friedman, President of Teamsters Local 507.

[John Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neff uncovered amazing research and pieced it together in a compelling manner when telling the complicated story of a Cleveland area high school drop out that became president of one of the largest unions. Five wives, five payrolls from different union positions he held, the mafia on one side and the FBI on the other. If that is not enough, the Labor Department trying to get the goods on the corrupt union official only to be obstructed by the FBI since Presser was a stooge.

This book definitely showed the worse of the labor movement – people breaking the law, lining their pockets, scheming with public officials to self-deal. But throughout it, Neff pointed out that this was not the norm and wasn’t how labor lead. He spoke about how other unions understood their members were centered, highlighted that the AFL-CIO put the Teamsters out, and the salaries of some of these bad Teamster officials were higher than top union leaders.

The story of Presser's fourth wife returning his suits or the earlier sad story of his first wife seem like something out of a movie. The schemes, near misses, car bombings, double dealing, and other criminal activities were much more of a mob story than a labor story. It’s sad that it has a “labor leader” as the main character. Oh, and what a character.

It’s too bad Neff didn’t do a second book on the reforms of the Teamsters, another book of curves and surprises when a ‘reformer’ took over under questionable practices and the union moved forward with the government in an unique powerful position over the powerful and proud union.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Frank Palardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presser wasn't as well known as Hoffa but he was a major Teamsters figure for several decades.