Ultimately, New York's bagel union handled the Mafia the same way that it handled nearly all extreme issues with management: full public confrontation. BaseballCodes writes
A New York bagel baker in the 1940s. Photo: Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.
The excessive hours mandated in such environments were so brutal that in the late 1920s, bagel bakers, primarily immigrants from Eastern Europe, banded together in protest. The result — Union Local 338, under the umbrella of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International — offered a measure of professional leverage. Beginning in the 1930s, if one wanted to run a bagel shop in Manhattan, one had no choice but to employ union bakers.
A capo in the Lucchese crime family, Dioguardi had already made a fortune skimming off the top of fraudulent New York labor unions he’d formed for that very purpose. In 1963, Dioguardi — having just served three years of a four-year mob-related prison sentence for tax evasion — proclaimed himself a changed man. He portrayed the work he’d lined up upon his release, for a company called Consumer Kosher Provisions, Inc., as legitimate.
Pertinently, the mob now had significant say in Manhattan’s two top kosher-meat companies, resulting in a spike in consumer prices. New Yorkers whose diet relied on these products were beside themselves. Except that Willner’s weren’t the only mobbed-up bagels in town. In 1964, a shop called Bagel Boys had opened in the center of Jewish New York, on King’s Highway in Brooklyn. Among its principals was Thomas Eboli, otherwise known as Tommy Ryan, a capo in the Genovese crime family and a direct counter to Dio. Eboli was so powerful, in fact, that when Vito Genovese died a few years later, Eboli reigned for a time as the family boss.
Mauro’s group asked the union what kind of contracts might be available in order to get the picketing to stop. When they were told that Local 338 worked with a single, uniform contract, the mobsters recoiled. They were “special people,” they insisted, and merited special treatment.
The author’s great-grandfather, Louis Friedman, is in the third row. Photo: courtesy of Jason Turbow The showdown with Bagel Boys served to obscure another issue on the union’s docket — one with far more lasting repercussions. Lender’s bagels had been in operation since 1927 in New Haven, Connecticut. It was outside the purview of Local 338, so when, only months before Bagel Boys opened its doors, Lender’s leased a Thompson’s bagel machine of its own, the union paid it little mind.
The incoming bagels were not only more accessible than the locally sourced version, but were 40 percent less expensive. At about this point, Sal Mauro showed up with another mob-backed proposition for the union: He could end dough deliveries into the city, he said, at a cost of $50,000, using the muscle of Joe Genovese, cousin of the former boss of all bosses, Vito Genovese. When union leaders inquired about the details therein, Mauro told them that the less they knew, the better off they’d be.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Rich The Kid, NBA YoungBoy Floss New Bling Ahead of New AlbumRich the Kid and NBA YoungBoy make album collaboration official with new chains.
Read more »
In tight race, new polls show Biden on top in Iowa, New HampshireTwo opinion polls from the states holding the first presidential nominating cont...
Read more »
Ashley Graham’s New Swimsuits for All Campaign Celebrates Pregnant BodiesThe model gets real about pregnancy weight gain and the pressures of 'bounce back' culture.
Read more »
This New Startup Wants to Bring Eye Care to the Forefront of Wellness CultureAn L.A.-based father-daughter team has launched what could be the next big thing in holistic health.
Read more »
Ashley Graham’s New Swimsuits for All Campaign Celebrates Pregnant BodiesThe model gets real about pregnancy weight gain and the pressures of 'bounce back' culture.
Read more »
Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha addresses problems with her teenage daughters in honest new videoLoose Women star Nadia Sawalha has opened up about the problems she faces with her teenage daughters in an honest new video
Read more »