Mobsters, Unions, and Feds

Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions. Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort. A renown criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of 20th century urban America. Since FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, federal law enforcement has aggressively investigated and prosecuted labor racketeers, as well as utilized the civil remedies provided for by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to impose long-term court-supervised remedial trusteeships on mobbed-up unions. There have been some impressive victories, including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime, but victory cannot yet be claimed. The only book to investigate how the mob has exploited the American labor movement, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the most comprehensive study to date of how labor racketeering evolved and how the government has finally resolved to eradicate it.

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"Jacobs offers a history of the federal government's efforts to curb labor racketeering. The heart of his text focuses on the results achieved by employing Civil RICO suits to weed out organized crime from unions long mired in corruption. The Justice Department has mounted twenty such efforts since 1982, and Jacobs's book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of this controversial tactic. He tackles this ambitious project with a combination of detailed research, clear writing, and judicious consideration, all of which have been a hallmark of his previous texts on corruption and organized crime. The result is a must read book for anyone interested in the problem of union corruption and what to do about it." --Industrial and Labor Relations Review "For an understanding of RICO litigation against unions, Jacobs's book is a good choice." -Law and History Review"Jacobs, legal scholar and expert on the Mafia, sets out to show how the Mob has distorted American labor history, explaining the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions" --Booklist "James Jacobs, a New York University law professor and author of Mobsters, Unions and Feds, says Mafiosi were hired by union organizers in the early twentieth century to combat company toughs. Now, he says, they specialize in 'selling the rights of workers.' " --USA Today "Jacobs further burnishes his reputation for advancing the study of organized crime in America with his latest work of scholarship, billed by the publisher as 'the only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history.' This worthy successor to Gotham Unbound and Busting the Mob is an exhaustive, albeit sometimes repetitive, survey of the grip La Cosa Nostra has exerted on the country's most powerful unions. While many will be familiar with the broad outlines of the corruption that riddled the Teamsters, which is recounted by the author, his summary of some lesser-known examples of pervasive labor corruption help illustrate his thesis that the entire American union movement has suffered from the intimidation and fear the mob used to gain and maintain control of unions. Especially valuable is Jacobs's examination of the relatively recent use of the RICO law to bring dirty unions under the control of a federally appointed independent trustee, and the book's posing of hard questions about the mixed success those monitorships have had." --Publishers Weekly "Jacobs has covered a wide range of legal issues, including such hot-button topics as hate crime laws and gun control, but he always returns to the world of mobsters and the men and women who investigate, prosecute, and sentence them." --NYU Today "I am not aware of a book that covers the same ground as this one--let alone one that does so using such thorough research and with such technical competence." --Anthony M. Gould, Universite Laval "James Jacobs brilliantly documents and analyzes a remarkable and untold chapter in the history of American law enforcement. This groundbreaking book should be a starting point for officials around the world who confront powerful organized crime groups." --Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York and former Director, National Institute of Justice "A pathbreaking work. For 50 years, organized crime has been the elephant in organized labor's living room, unacknowledged and unexplained. Jacobs has critically analyzed every facet of this apparently intractable problem--from its roots to the federal government's various efforts to challenge organized crime's influence. From this point forward, no one can think critically about this problem without relying on Jacobs' work." --Robert Luskin, General Executive Board Attorney, Laborers' International Union of North America "Jacobs presents a near encyclopedic account of the Mafia's infiltration, control and exploitation of four major national unions and a number of large local unions. It is a sordid frightening story of violence, corruption and oppression, the betrayal of union members and extortion of employers, defiance of the law and disregard for human decency. This disturbing story should be required reading for all who seek strong and more democratic unions, all who would protect the rights of workers, and all who are concerned for the health of our political and social processes." --Clyde Summers, Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania Law School "A fabulous and fascinating book. Jacobs demonstrates the continuing impact of organized crime on the American union movement, and details the legal mechanisms developed in recent years to combat mob influence. History has come home to haunt us, and Jacobs makes the case for using law to fight against the mob for union democracy." --Stanley N. Katz, Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University "Jacobs demonstrates that while it has been remarkably difficult to defeat labor racketeering, much has been achieved. This will be welcome news to all who root for the revitalization of the labor movement." --Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, Cornell University

James B. Jacobs, legal scholar and sociologist, was Warren E. Burger Professor of Law and Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice, NYU School of Law. Among his books are Mobsters, Unions & Fed: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement, Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime, Busting the Mob: United States v. Cosa Nostra, and Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry, all published by NYU Press.

Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions. Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort. A renown criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of 20th century urban America. Since FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, federal law enforcement has aggressively investigated and prosecuted labor racketeers, as well as utilized the civil remedies provided for by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to impose long-term court-supervised remedial trusteeships on mobbed-up unions. There have been some impressive victories, including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime, but victory cannot yet be claimed. The only book to investigate how the mob has exploited the American labor movement, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the most comprehensive study to date of how labor racketeering evolved and how the government has finally resolved to eradicate it.

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