David Witwer Email & Phone Number

I am a professor of history and director of the Honors Programs at Penn State Harrisburg. My research focuses on corruption and labor rackteering. In my three books I have explored why some unions appear more prone to corruption and the factors that work to inhibit reform in those organizations. But I also trace the ways that anti-union forces have misrepresented this issue, fostering corruption scandals which they hoped would weakend organized labor. In my most recent book, authored with Catherine Rios, we used the story of a 1949 murder case in New York City's Garment District to highlight a pattern of accommodation with organized crime that some sectors of the labor movement were forced to make because of the widespread corruption of law enforcement and the complicity of employers. My current book project is about the disappearance of the Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa in 1975 and the historical ramifications of that event.