Murder in the Garment District: The Grip of Organized Crime and the Decline of Labor in the United States

by David Witwer, Catherine Rios

Overview

The thrilling and true account of racketeering and union corruption in mid-century New York, when unions and the mob were locked in a power struggle that reverberates to this day

In 1949, in New York City's crowded Garment District, a union organizer named William Lurye was stabbed to death by a mob assassin. Through the lens of this murder case, prize-winning authors David Witwer and Catherine Rios explore American labor history at its critical turning point, drawing on FBI case files and the private papers of investigative journalists who first broke the story. A narrative that originates in the garment industry of mid-century New York, which produced over 80 percent of the nation's dresses at the time, Murder in the Garment District quickly moves to a national stage, where congressional anti-corruption hearings gripped the nation and forever tainted the reputation of American unions.

Replete with elements of a true-crime thriller, Murder in the Garment District includes a riveting cast of characters, from wheeling and dealing union president David Dubinsky to the notorious gangster Abe Chait and the crusading Robert F. Kennedy, whose public duel with Jimmy Hoffa became front-page news.

Deeply researched and grounded in the street-level events that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, Murder in the Garment District is destined to become a classic work of history—one that also explains the current troubled state of unions in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620974636
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	05/05/2020
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	747,774
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Witwer is a professor of history and American studies at Penn State Harrisburg and the author (with Catherine Rios) of Murder in the Garment District as well as Corruption and Reform in the Teamsters Union and Shadow of the Racketeer. Witwer also worked in the Labor Racketeering Bureau of the New York County District Attorney's Office and served as a staff researcher at the New York State Organized Crime Task Force.

Catherine Rios is an award-winning filmmaker and writer, an associate professor of humanities and communications at Penn State Harrisburg, and the author (with David Witwer) of Murder in the Garment District.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 A Murder in the Garment District: Power and Pressure 7

2 Shots in the Dark: Violence and Apathy 29

3 The Workings of Racketeering: Blood and Profit 53

4 An Organizer's Fight for Justice: Rage and Dignity 81

5 A Pattern of Accommodation: Allies and Enemies 105

6 The Uses of Fear: Ambition and Manipulation 131

7 The Congressional Hearings: Revelation and Rhetoric 161

8 The 1958 Dress Strike and the Ethical Practices Committee: Resistance and Resignation 191

Afterword: The Enemy Within 227

Acknowledgments 237

Notes 241

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

03/16/2020

Witwer, a Penn State Harrisburg history professor, and his colleague Rios, a filmmaker and humanities professor, deliver an insightful analysis of the period in the 1950s when American labor unions acquired a reputation for corruption and criminality that lingers today. Discrediting accusations of widespread moral failures by union leaders, Witwer and Rios argue that long-standing relationships between businessmen and mobsters made it nearly impossible to organize workers in certain industries without engaging with gangsters. Organizers who resisted the mob, including William Lurye, whose brazen, broad-daylight murder in New York City’s Garment District the authors use as a framing device, found themselves vulnerable to violent attacks, with little redress from police or government officials. Witwer and Rios argue that accommodations worked out between labor and organized crime were part of the “operational codes” of the period, and document how such agreements enabled labor leaders to win rights and concessions for workers, but left them vulnerable to congressional investigations and anti-union legislation. Witwer and Rios amass a wealth of detail to complicate the prevailing narrative around the subject, and make a strong case that the reputation of labor unions as inherently corrupt is overblown. This granular, revisionist history will resonate with labor activists and history buffs. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Murder in the Garment District:
"A painstaking reconstruction of a sensational 1949 murder and a tumultuous era that marked the beginning of the long decline of American labor unions."
—Kirkus Reviews

"A muckraking study by David Witwer and Catherine Rios that opens with a shocking killing of a labor organizer."
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Murder in the Garment District is well-documented, well-written, and altogether terrific. Its honesty is refreshing, reminding us that even before the forces of globalization and technology battered the American labor movement there was a serious disease that contributed to its decline. The persistence of that malady, and its impact on workers, must continue to be addressed."
—The New York Labor History Association

"Fans of Martin Scorsese's The Irishman or perhaps even the garment subplots in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will find great intrigue with this hardboiled look at racketeering and the mob's gradual influence over labor unions."
—The Bowery Boys

"A cast of ruthless mob bosses, crooked politicians, corrupt journalists, conniving contractors, and gutsy working-class heroes springs vividly to life in these pages. Witwer and Rios uncover a fierce yet all-but-forgotten battle for the soul of the union movement—a battle whose ambiguous outcome haunts us still."
—Joseph A. McCartin, author of Collision Course

"Combining masterful storytelling with rigorous research and analysis . . . this isn't a story with clear heroes and villains, but one where characters must react to the flawed realities in their operating environment, sometimes with historically tragic consequences."
—David Rolf, founder and president emeritus, SEIU 775, and author of The Fight for Fifteen

"This unflinching analysis of 'mobbed-up' unions reveals that they flourished in contexts where corrupt police forces looked the other way, and where employers rejected honest unions in favor of sweetheart contracts. A must-read for anyone interested in labor's future."
—Ruth Milkman, author of Unfinished Business and Gender at Work

"A powerful page-turner that completely reshapes how we think about the connections between unions, corruption, and organized crime, and a critically important work for anyone interested in reviving the power of the American working class."
—Erik Loomis, author of A History of America in Ten Strikes and Out of Sight

"Witwer and Rios highlight the dark side of organized labor's decline from public influence since the 1950s. A compelling account of mob threats and violence regularly visited on garment and teamster union organizers, Murder in the Garment District reminds us of the defining power of coercion in American labor-management relations."
—Leon Fink, author of The Long Gilded Age and Workers in Hard Times

"Witwer and Rios tell a compelling and well-written story that has ramifications that extend beyond the immediate subject, e.g., how and why corruption as well as organized crime exist more generally. I recommend reading it!"
—James Finckenauer, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

From the Publisher

03/20/2020

Witwer (history, American studies) and Rios (humanities & educations, both Pennsylvania State Harrisburg) use the murder of a low-level labor organizer in New York's Garment District in 1949 as a keystone for their study of the broader relationship between unions and organized crime in the mid-20th century. These two powerful groups interacted in ways that both aided and impeded labor's interests. Ultimately, corruption came to the attention of influential columnists and resulted in the highly publicized McClellan Committee hearings. Ties to organized crime damaged labor's reputation, while journalists and politicians built their own renown exposing the wrongdoing. The authors also emphasize how organized crime, labor, and small garment makers found mutual benefit through cooperation. Their storytelling skills help unravel the complex worlds of crime and labor at a time when both exercised considerable influence. While this is primarily a work of history and not the true crime tale implied by the title, patient readers will be rewarded by a fascinating narrative of individuals, families, and organizations, grounded in sound analyses. VERDICT For anyone interested in labor history and organized crime, this will be a rewarding if challenging read.—Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

Library Journal

2020-02-07
A painstaking reconstruction of a sensational 1949 murder and a tumultuous era that marked the beginning of the long decline of American labor unions.

Union organizer William Lurye received a hero’s funeral after he was stabbed to death by a mob assassin in New York’s Garment District. However, it soon became clear that Lurye was not quite the noble idealist eulogized by David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. On the contrary, his moral complexities reflected those of labor itself in a less-regulated era in which the law of the jungle often prevailed. A grand jury indicted two men for Lurye’s murder—Ben Macri, an associate of crime boss Albert Anastasia, and hired hand Johnny Giusto—but both beat the rap: Macri was acquitted amid suspicions of witness tampering, and Giusto vanished. In this well-researched but less-than-riveting history of the murder and aftermath, Witwer and debut author Rios, both professors at Penn State Harrisburg, show the seismic effects of the case: It helped lead to congressional hearings on labor racketeering that pitted a relentless Robert F. Kennedy against Teamster head Jimmy Hoffa, a televised spectacle that dealt unions a blow from which they have never fully recovered. To a striking degree, write the authors, “the growing level of income inequality in the United States has coincided with the historic decline in rates of union membership.” Timely as that message is when presidential candidates have made workers’ wages and benefits a key campaign issue, the book loses much of its suspense with Macri’s acquittal halfway through; much of the later material covers events that deepen the context for Lurye’s murder without advancing that central story. Some of that content—particularly regarding the remarkably brave women who risked their lives to organize garment workers in northeastern Pennsylvania—is fascinating, but a stronger narrative thread might have extended its reach further beyond its natural home in the college classroom.

A worthy but imperfect marriage of true crime and a history of labor racketeering.

Kirkus Reviews