Raymond Cohen

Raymond Cohen was the president of Teamsters Local 107 in Philadelphia, described by Frank Sheeran as the country’s fourth-largest local and one so large that it was difficult to manage. Cohen stood at the center of its recurrent disputes: he faced internal factions, came under Senate investigation for corruption, and was eventually convicted of embezzling union funds. His story in Sheeran’s account turns on a contradiction: Cohen backed Jimmy Hoffa publicly but could resist Hoffa’s priorities inside the union, until a challenge from dissidents and his own conviction narrowed his room to maneuver.

Position and Leadership

Sheeran portrays Teamsters Local 107 as an organization marked by persistent factional conflict. Cohen, its president, was frequently under pressure, while Joey McGreal maintained a crew of his own and, according to Sheeran, sought to encourage dissension in order to take over. Local politics were therefore not simply a contest between Cohen and one rival; they involved competing groups and a leadership position that was difficult to hold.

Sheeran’s personal view of Cohen was sharply hostile. He describes Cohen as ruling with an iron hand and showing little respect for other people. In response, Sheeran says that he made a motion each month to take away something Cohen controlled, such as his car or expense account. Those repeated motions were a form of harassment, but they also show how the local’s internal conflict could be carried through its routine business. Cohen complained about Sheeran to Hoffa, bringing the dispute beyond Philadelphia and into the union’s national relationships.

Public Support and Private Resistance

Cohen was a prominent supporter of Hoffa in public and held a position as one of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ three trustees. Sheeran’s account, however, draws a distinction between that public alignment and Cohen’s conduct behind the scenes. Sheeran says that Cohen could back Hoffa outwardly while opposing him internally when Hoffa was trying to accomplish something. The clearest example was the proposed Master Freight Agreement, Hoffa’s plan for a nationwide truckers’ contract. Cohen opposed the plan, which Sheeran presents as a source of embarrassment and a serious obstacle to Hoffa’s work.

That opposition gave Cohen’s local leadership wider significance. The dispute was not only about personalities or control of Teamsters Local 107: Hoffa was trying to establish an agreement that the union had pursued for twenty-five years. In Sheeran’s telling, Cohen’s position made him an unreliable ally precisely where Hoffa needed support for a national project. At the same time, Cohen’s public support for Hoffa remained politically useful, complicating any simple picture of him as either a loyalist or an opponent.

The Voice Challenge

A rebel faction at Teamsters Local 107 called itself the Voice, short for the Voice of Teamsters Local 107. Sheeran says it formed around the same period as conflict in Chicago involving Dominic Abata and that Hoffa suspected Paul Hall and the AFL-CIO of supporting the Philadelphia rebels. The challenge threatened Cohen’s hold on the local as well as Hoffa’s influence there. The account thus places local dissent within a larger struggle over union authority, rather than presenting it as an isolated disagreement among members.

The contest became especially dangerous after a Voice election was set aside because of anti-Voice violence. In a later election, the faction again came close: it lost by only 600 votes in a local with 11,000 members. Hoffa then spent fourteen weeks at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia campaigning against it. Rather than resorting to violence in that campaign, he explained the potential gains in pay and pensions under his plans for the union. In the April 1963 election, Hoffa’s Teamsters defeated the Voice again, bringing the local back into line. He promised to “let bygones be bygones.”

Hoffa’s Intervention and Cohen’s Fall

A separate account of the local’s contest describes an earlier, close rally that Hoffa attended to support the membership campaign. Police wanted to bring him in through a back entrance, but Hoffa refused. He walked down the aisle with Sheeran rather than accept a police escort, and, although there were boos farther back in the hall, the members along the aisle did not become aggressive. The rally helped turn some attendees who had arrived opposed to Hoffa toward respect for him. His side won by perhaps a few hundred votes. The Voice did not disappear, but its momentum slowed, and Sheeran says Cohen became easier to deal with and more gracious after the near defeat.

Cohen’s political position weakened decisively on June 4, 1963, when he was convicted of embezzling union funds. Sheeran states that the conviction meant Cohen would be removed as president of Teamsters Local 107 and go to jail. It also meant he could no longer secretly work against Hoffa’s negotiations with Philadelphia trucking companies. The same afternoon, a Chicago grand jury indicted Hoffa for fraudulent misuse of the Central States Pension Fund, a reminder that Cohen’s downfall did not bring an end to the pressures surrounding Hoffa himself.

Narrative Significance

Cohen’s arc is defined by the gap between allegiance and action. His public support for Hoffa coexisted with resistance to Hoffa’s major contract goal; his authority at the local was challenged by rebels, and his eventual conviction removed him from the negotiations that had made that resistance consequential. In Sheeran’s account, Hoffa’s intervention could rally members and restore a local to line, but it did not erase the factional struggle. Cohen’s fall instead changed the conditions under which the Master Freight Agreement could be pursued, linking a local corruption conviction to a national labor ambition.