-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- an excerpt from: Crime on the Labor Front Malcom Johnson©1950 McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. New York. 243 pps. - First Edition - Out-of-Print --[1]-- CHAPTER ONE Labor Gangsterism I AM A reporter. I have no ax to grind against labor. On the contrary, I am a union man myself and ardently prolabor. In keeping with our industrial growth one of the finest things that has happened in America in the past half century has been the rise of the laboring man to a position of relative respect, independence, and security. Blood has been shed, the wheels of industry often have been slowed, and labor and capital have indulged in bitter strife. Yet the result—a sounder, healthier laboring group-has been worth the turmoil. Labor's advance is for the most part due to organized union activity. Anyone who denies that unions have a place in our twentieth-century world has an eighteenth-century mind. On the other hand, unions now must be made to shoulder the full responsibility which comes with their newly found maturity. Unions have the power to starve America, freeze America, immobolize America, render America weak and defenseless. I am not necessarily questioning the great power that rests in the hands of our labor leaders. I am only emphasizing the immense responsibility which comes with that power. This book constitutes an indictment of those labor leaders, and the gangsters who stand behind them, who deny that responsibility. There are leaders in labor unions today who have police records that read like a Cook's tour of American hoosegows. There are men in responsible union positions who have been indicted for murder, kidnaping, rape, robbery, pandering, and every other crime in the books. Behind the respectable facade of organized labor, they practice extortion, participate in gambling syndicates, demand wage kickbacks and bribes, and engage in blackmail and murder. Such leaders care nothing about wages, hours, and working conditions of the union members. They care nothing about the consumer who, in the end, must pay in higher prices for their crooked deals. They care nothing about the future of the labor movement in America, which they are jeopardizing with their malpractices. This book concerns gangsterism and racketeering in labor. It is specifically n ot concerned with communism in labor, for that is another labor disease entirely. Where the word "communism" appears it is usually in reference to the false alibis offered by labor gangsters for the misdeeds of their unions. This book is definitely against certain people. It is against criminals in labor,- against gangsters who have captured control of unions. It is against old-line, unenlightened labor dictators who are lining their own pockets at the expense of the workers and the public. It is against those greedy and frightened employers who, whether out of avarice or fear, work hand in glove with the racketeers. It is against corrupt politicians and policemen who, for a share in the loot, protect a system that allows labor gangsterism to flourish. It is against crooked and apathetic public officials who either condone this great social malady or think discretion the better part of valor and turn their heads the other way. This book is for the two groups which suffer most under the present setup—the union rank and file and the public. Only through decent leadership can labor command the public respect and the dignity it deserves. Only through competent, honest leaders will the workingman get all that is coming to him in the way of job security and higher wages. In short, labor must clean house. Unless it does, public reaction against present abuses may result in a wholesale condemnation of unions and the enactment of unjust and severely restrictive laws. Although corruption and chaos predominate in relatively few unions, their excesses are so extreme and so violent that they invariably achieve prominent notice in our newspapers. If two insignificant thugs, in vying for control of the numbers racket in a union local, kill each other, that killing gets more front-page space than any number of welfare funds, pension plans, and wage increases that honest union leaders are earning for their men. Once the public gets the idea that all unions are full of criminals and ex-convicts, then labor's goose is cooked. Whenever John Q. Citizen reads in the newspapers that a prominent union leader has been indicted on charges of bribery or murder or theft, he shudders to think that such men wield considerable power under our system. His fears are immediately felt on Capitol Hill, where each Congressman is particularly sensitive to the attitudes of his constituency. The reactionary antilabor voices take up the cry, and that is the way a harsh restrictive labor bill is born. Thus, in a very real sense, the future of labor may depend on its ability to drive criminals and convicts from its ranks. Yet the examples of labor gangsterism explored here are not isolated instances. They are typical cases. They include descriptions of the kind of ruthless warfare in which private homes are dynamited, business establishments bombed, tradesmen forced into bankruptcy, and innocent men shot, knifed, and beaten to death. The murders and the bombs get into the headlines; the want and misery of the union men whose leaders are criminals receive little attention. Many union members relinquish all responsibility to their officers. The officers bargain with management, recommend terms to the membership, and strongly advise the men as to what they should ask for and what they actually can get. If the union leadership is dishonest, it plays both ends against the middle. A perfect example of this technique is the case of John (Big) Nick, business agent for the St. Louis Motion Picture Operators Union. Big Nick, with a flamboyant show of union chauvinism, demanded exorbitant wage increases for St. Louis operators—but added in an undertone that for $10,000 in cash a "more satisfactory" contract could be arranged. Nick pocketed the cash, and the operators whom he supposedly represented did not get a cent's raise. Invariably when there is racketeering in a union, it is the union members who suffer the most. The racketeers intercept the benefits which are the laboring man's due-higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, pension-plans, welfare funds, insurance schemes—and convert these benefits into ready cash. Sometimes management plays along with the criminals because it is afraid, sometimes because it calculates that the bribe money comes to less than what it otherwise would pay its workers in higher wages and other benefits. This last assumption always proves incorrect. Once the labor racketeer finds that management is willing to resort to bribery, he will come back with strike threats, blackmail threats, and every other method of extortion until the company is milked dry. There are two main types of racketeers in the labor movement today. One is the city-bred gangster or gunman, usually a product of the slums, with a long record in other fields of criminal activity before he turned to labor. The other is the old-line labor leader who, though thoroughly corrupt, has been identified with the union since his youth. He has risen through the ranks and has come to regard the union and its funds as his personal property. He knows what is good for the members. He's the boss and what he says goes. Curiously enough, this type of leader often creates the impression of sincerity when he insists that he always does his best for the membership. Perhaps he points with pride to his union's wage gains. If he grows rich off the boys and appropriates union funds for his own use—well, it's his union, ain't it? An excellent example of this type of old-line labor leader who turned racketeer is Michael Joseph (Umbrella Mike) Boyle of Chicago, for more than twenty-five years business agent of Local 134, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL. Under Umbrella Mike's leadership the union local grew so strong that he had to hire five assistants to help rake in the cash. His contemporaries say that, in his early days as a union agent, Boyle transacted most of his business in a Chicago saloon. Boyle would hang an umbrella on the bar, and contractors seeking strike insurance would deposit money in its folds. Hence the nickname, "Umbrella Mike." Between 1909 and 1942 Boyle was jailed for restraint of trade and contempt of court and accused of extortion, jumping bail, and blackmail. One of his noblest transactions was shaking down a church for $200 for installing a special type of electrical equipment. In 1919 a Federal Court of Appeals denounced Boyle as "a blackmailer, a highwayman, a betrayer of labor, and a leech on commerce." In 1940 Boyle once more ran afoul of the law. He was indicted for conspiracy to curb the sale of electrical supplies made outside the state of Illinois for the purpose of raising prices within the state. Although the action was dismissed in 1942, there could be little doubt as to Umbrella Mike's penchant for shady deals throughout his fortyyear career in labor. Yet at the international convention of his union in 1946, it was none other than the "blackmailer, highwayman, and leech" Umbrella Mike Boyle who influenced and led a group of delegates to oust the union's president and elect a new one. Mike Boyle, despite his police record, continued to wield power. The out-and-out gangster type in labor has come up the hard way, with guns, clubs, and fists. A hoodlum since his youth in the streets, he has been a petty thief, brawler, hijacker, stickup man, and gambler before graduating into the higher echelons of crime. He joins a gang, serves as knockdown man or gunman, and eventually becomes a lieutenant of the boss before blasting his way to power in his own right. He is shrewd, cunning, and with the passing of the years he achieves a surface smoothness of manner to match his well-tailored clothes and tonsorial perfection. As a successful labor racketeer he may also find a certain prestige that he has never before known in his community. He may even get write-ups in newspapers, quoting his views on labor and business. He learns to preside with aplomb at testimonial dinners in his honor-paid for out of his union funds or by industrialists currying his favor. He learns to use the correct eating tools and to make little speeches about the inalienable rights of the working man. If he rises high enough he tries to forget his hoodlum background. He no longer does his own killing and strong-arm work, but hires others to do it for him. He hobnobs with giants of industry, dines at fashionable restaurants, drives expensive cars, and in general lives in the high style he thinks his position demands. But underneath his thin veneer of respectability he is still a vicious criminal. The late and notorious Dutch Schultz was a perfect example of the big-time gangster who found labor racketeering a profitable sideline. Schultz was a giant in the bootlegging business a kingpin in the numbers game, and also boss of a union and trade association racket in the restaurant business in Manhattan. Schultz used what might be called the direct approach to "organize" the restaurant business into a million-dollar-a-year racket. In 1932 he sent a gun-waving henchman, Julie Martin, to take over Local 16 of the Waiters Union. Next Martin commandeered Local 302 of the Cafeteria Workers Union by asking its business agent, one Irving Epstein, "How do you think you'd look without any ears?" To consolidate the racket, Martin organized the Metropolitan Restaurant and Cafeteria owners Association, installed a Schultz man as secretary, then forced owners to join the association. Schultz and Martin were thus able to intimidate and control both the owners and the union. They would threaten a strike by the union, sell strike insurance to the owners in the form of heavy fees or dues as association members, call off the strike, and pocket the money. Owners who hesitated about joining the association were intimidated by picket lines and stench bombs. Ironically, Martin was murdered after a quarrel with Schultz over the "take" from the restaurant racket, and Schultz himself was killed by rival gangsters not long afterward. Mobsters like Schultz have perfected several methods of gaining power in the labor movement. They may organize their own union. They may seize control of an established union at the point of guns. They may do it by infiltration, enrolling gang members in the union and then, by rigged elections, voting their own men into key offices. All methods have been employed successfully. They will be illustrated in the following pages. With the passing of prohibition, the criminals who had grown rich during the bootleg era were forced to search for new fields of endeavor. They found a bonanza in the labor movement. Here was one of the richest rackets of all, the racket of organizing unions, or wresting control of unions already organized, for the purpose of increasing, their wealth and power. In the early days of the New Deal, with the passage of the Wagner Act guaranteeing the right of collective bargaining, trade unions enrolled millions of recruits. In this period of expansion and reorganization, the sharpest growing pain which trade unionism suffered was the infiltration of untold numbers of gangsters and racketmen. In muscling in and taking over, the mobs used the time-tested methods of the top gangsters of prohibition days, such as Al Capone. They carried guns, bashed heads, and threatened. Violence and bloodshed have long been the chief symptoms of this labor disease. In New York City alone at least twenty murders have been accredited by the Police Department to the activities of gangsters in just one union, the International Longshoremen's Association. A dozen of these murders follow a recognizable pattern. A Iongshoreman—call him O'Toole-stands at the bar in a dingy waterfront saloon, nursing a beer. It is after hours and O'Toole, perhaps a hiring boss at a Manhattan pier on the Hudson River, is relaxing with a couple of friends, also dock workers. The west side bar and grill is thick with tobacco smoke and the smell of stale beer. The talk is loud and a juke box is playing in the background. A man in a leather jacket and gray cap walks in unnoticed. He asks the bartender for O'Toole. The bartender nods down the bar, and turns to reach for a clean glass. The man in the gray cap walks up to O'Toole, pulls a pistol from the pocket of his jacket, and shoots O'Toole once in the neck, once in the forehead, and once in the chest. As the shots are fired, men dive under tables and scramble behind the bar. O'Toole is dead before he hits the floor. There is no evidence. Witnesses of the shooting say that they are unable to identify the face under the gray cap. Motives there are aplenty. Perhaps O'Toole, as hiring boss, demanded wage kickbacks and bribes. Perhaps he controlled the numbers game or other rackets on his pier. Perhaps someone else wanted the loot and graft money which came with his job. But the District Attorney cannot send a theory or a motive to the electric chair. The police carry the case unsolved, as they have so many other waterfront murders, and list it as stemming from "labor difficulties." A young war veteran, George Norman, is honorably discharged from the Navy in 1945 and goes to work on his uncle's dairy farm in New Canaan, Connecticut. Shortly after V-E Day, the business agent of a New York local of the Teamsters Union suddenly claims jurisdiction in New Canaan and announces that the Norman employees, ten in number, have joined the union. Mr. Norman is ordered to sign a closed shop contract calling for a straight five-day, forty-hour week which in effect would mean a 20 per cent increase in the dairy's payroll. There is no bargaining or labor election to determine whether the Norman employees actually want the union to represent them. The New York local operates in an area where prices and wages differ substantially from those prevailing in Connecticut. Moreover, OPA price ceilings and other wartime restrictions are still in effect. Contracts similar to that thrust upon Norman are signed by producers in the New York milkshed, but the OPA permits them to raise their milk prices two cents a quart as a result. The OPA refuses to permit Norman a similar increase in Connecticut. Norman explains to the union thugs that without a price increase he cannot compete with other Connecticut dairies outside the jurisdiction of the New York Teamsters local. The union's business agent is unmoved. Without a strike vote and in violation of the Federal law requiring thirty days' notice of intention to strike, the local calls a strike against Norman. The union sends hundreds of pickets to encircle the dairy farm. Squads of union tough& patrol the roads in cars. Drivers from other farms attempting to deliver milk are pulled from their trucks. Customers attempting to drive to the dairy to buy milk for their children are stopped and forced to turn back. Pickets threaten the Norman children. They set fire to grass fields near the dairy barns. The dairy employees are coerced into a strike. Norman's nephew, George, the young Navy veteran, tries to drive a milk truck into town. He is forced to the side of the road by a car full of union pickets. They pull him from the seat, beat him, wreck the truck, slash the tires, and dump the milk. Then they drive away, leaving young Norman lying unconscious in the road. Chicago used to be Al Capone's town. Many of his lieutenants still operate there, and one of them-call him Louiehas certain valuable connections with gangsters in the Building Service Employees Union. Among the members of this union are thousands of elevator operators. By calling these operators out on strike the union could stifle operations in every office building in Chicago. The gangsters in the Building Service Employees Union send Louie out to talk to the owners of the big office buildings. In the name of the union, Louie demands of each owner a thousand-dollar donation, or else he threatens a strike. The owners are reasonable men who understand the power of the union. With a little persuasion from 'Louie they contribute the "strike insurance." Louie winds up a couple of days of negotiating with $25,000 in his jeans. But he has what is known in the trade as sticky fingers. Instead of handing over the shakedown money to the union bosses, he disappears into the jungle of bars and brothels on Chicago's South Side. Behind him he leaves a trail of champagne bottles and boisterous parties. Ten days later the money has evaporated and Louie staggers out of a penny arcade into gaudy neon-lit Harrison Street. The gentlemen to whom Louie should have delivered the $25,000 are waiting for him at the corner. They bundle him into a car, and Louie's body turns up a few days later in an empty lot in suburban Chicago. Perhaps such murders seem merely a part of the code of the underworld to the average citizen. When he sees them sensationally displayed in the daily newspapers, he fails to connect them in any way with his own daily existence. There is a connection, however, and it is a vital one. If our friend Louie in Chicago can disappear with $25,000 extorted from building owners, the owners must somehow attempt to make up the loss. The only way they can do it is by raising their prices to cover the higher "operating expenses," so they boost the office rentals. In the same way when the operator of a fleet of trucks is compelled to hire special workers on the docks to load and unload his trucks while his drivers sit by in enforced idleness, lie must recover that added expense. He does so by passing it on to the consignees of the goods. They in turn pass it on to the consumer who pays in higher prices. By contending that labor's reputation is in the balance, I do not mean to imply that most American labor unions have corrupt leadership. That is far from the truth. The primary danger lies in the fact that the excesses of the few crime-ridden unions are so formidable and violent and headline-catching that they threaten the reputations of all honest unions and of labor generally. The second great danger is that criminal gangs, finding certain unions so ripe for exploitation and so profitable, will attempt to expand their operations to cover the entire field. Many inherently honest labor leaders might find the strong-arm methods, the thugs, the threats, the guns, the blackmail, and the bribery difficult to resist. In the following pages I cite a substantial number of cases of crime in labor. All of my information is completely documented and comes from court records, police files, the office of the District Attorney, and as a result of my own extensive research in the field while writing some two hundred articles for the New York Sun. The first half dozen chapters are vignettes of various corrupt unions and union leaders all over the country—the Stage Employees Union in Hollywood, the Building Service Employees Union in Chicago, the Teamsters Union in Philadelphia, the International Operating Engineers in New York, and others. The last half of the book deals extensively and in detail with the criminal activities—murder, theft, salary kickbacks, padded payrolls, bribery, extortion, threat, blackmail, etc.—of one of the most vicious and corrupt of all unions, the International Longshoremen's Association in New York City. It was this series of articles about the ILA, written for the New York Sun, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949. The parallels between these various cases of labor gangsterism arc so obvious that they need not even be drawn. There are a limited number of ways in which a burglar can enter a house. Once inside, there are a limited number of ways in which he can control the occupants of that house. When it comes to carrying away the loot, again he does not have too many alternatives from which to choose. In the same way, a gangster can break into a union by threats and violence, or he can "fix" an election so that one of his stooges becomes a key official. Once in power he can bribe his opposition into cooperation, or he can sew them in sacks and drop them into the river. As for carrying away the loot, almost every gangster resorts to the same tried-and-true rackets to swindle the members and coerce the company. The obvious similarities make diagnosis of this labor disease a relatively simple operation. Although I am not an economist or a labor expert, I shall in the course of the book criticize hiring methods, union constitutions, labor dictators, apathetic employers, corrupt politicians, and faulty laws. When the case appears to be relatively clear-cut, I shall offer solutions and remedies. The complete and final solution, however, must come from an aroused public and an enlightened labor group. If the book appears to constitute a one-sided or negative view of either labor or management, it should be remembered that a complete and balanced analysis in which each corrupt union is equated by an honest one is subject matter of impossible scope for one short volume. For every crime-wracked union there are innumerable honest and constructive ones. For every crooked union official there are a dozen David Dubinskys and Walter Reuthers. It is for the sake of the honest ones-that they may continue to work untouched by the cancerous growth of labor gangsterism—that I have written this book. pps. 1-13 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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