ST. LOUIS (AP) – A former longtime head of St. Louis’ Teamsters union during the 1980s has died.

Robert “Bobby” Sansone’s family tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Sansone died Friday of respiratory failure. He was 78. Sansone served for a dozen years as president of the Teamsters’ Joint Council 13, which represented St. Louis’ 35,000 members. He retired in 1998.

Sansone got a Teamsters union card at 16 to drive a dump truck at a St. Louis concrete plant. Sansone lost a bid in 1991 for vice president of the 1.4-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Two years later, Sansone was banned from the organization for failing to look into an aide’s alleged mob ties.

Sansone’s funeral Mass will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Anselm Catholic Parish in Creve Coeur.