But even as Hoffa spoke confidently about the future during an hour-long meeting at Teamsters headquarters, serious tests loom. It was the first interview granted The Detroit News by a leader of the union since the resolution of the newspaper's labor dispute. The Teamsters union's finances, nearly depleted by the past administration, are improving but the union is far from flush. Hoffa faces opposition from determined challengers who think he represents the union's bad old days. John Rabine, an ally from Seattle, was recently thrown out of office by opposition forces.
Some deep divisions remain, even at the level of individual locals.
And while he says he faces a future bright with possibilities and new glory for the Teamsters, there is no escaping the union's inglorious past, which resulted in federal supervision that Hoffa insists he will end. A huge portrait of Hoffa's father, the legendary Jimmy Hoffa who brought such power and notoriety to the union in the 1960s, hangs on the wall in the executive board room. When he was inaugurated president in 1999, Hoffa resurrected the painting from the bowels of the building where it had been banished by the previous administration. A haunting charcoal drawing of his father hangs in Hoffa's huge office with its breathtaking view of the Capitol. Another portrait hangs in the President's Room of the headquarters, known throughout union ranks as the Marble Palace because of the extensive use of the stone in its construction.