After Browne and Bioff left, Accardo said, “I think we’re asking for trouble with those two. They’re not our kind of people, Frank. What do we need them for?”
“Front men! Beards!” Nitti snapped. “Besides, Browne already has the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Operators in his pocket. Browne and Bioff will do the shaking down and we’ll take the money.”
“Bioff is a pimp. You can’t trust a pimp.”
“I don’t have to trust him, Tony. He has to trust me. Get it?”
Accardo shrugged. “Okay, you’re the boss.”
“That’s right. I’ll call the shots.”
Browne and Bioff did their work well in Hollywood. The amazing aspect in the shakedown operation was the type of men who submitted to it. Nicholas Schenck and his brother Joseph of MGM, at the time the major film producing company of the world; Louis B. Mayer, also of MGM; Sidney B. Kent, president of 20th Century-Fox; and Major Albert Warner of Warner Brothers. These men virtually controlled the movie industry.
In Chicago, meanwhile, Frank Nitti took care of Tommy Maloy. A car filled with Syndicate gunmen chased Maloy. up and down a darkened Chicago street in the early hours of the morning, caught up with him, and ended his life with bursts from two machine guns. Nick Circella now controlled Local 110.
There were several other killings of union officials who objected to Circella. Circella then took over control of the union left by Browne and the I.A.T.S.E. was in the pockets of the Syndicate.
The next time you go to a movie look for the IATSE imprimatur. It appears on every motion picture production made in every studio in the world. That’s the sphere it covers. The IATSE can close down any studio it pleases, for real or fancied reasons, simply by calling a strike of its membership. It happened. The studios were backed against a wall, and the Syndicate ruled the picture industry.
Nitti was elated at the success of the operation. Accardo was not. Accardo’s intuition, his innate intelligence, told him the whole thing would bust wide open and blow up in the face of the Syndicate. He wanted no part of it and said so.
He was proved right.
Nitti called Browne in Hollywood and told him to take Bioff with him and go to New York. “I want you to line up the studio executives there and put them in line. Yeah, that’s it. Line ’em up and put ’em in line. That’s good, huh?”
“Sure, Frank. We’ll take a train at the end of the week.”
When Nitti hung up the phone, Accardo said, “Frank, there’s going to be big trouble. These guys are too big. They got too much power. They’ll use it against us. Why don’t you drop it now. We’ve taken millions out of Hollywood. Isn’t that enough?”
Nitti banged a fist down on the desk. “Listen, Tony, and listen good. I brought you into the mob. I taught you a lot. I helped move you up. I’m boss. I do the thinking around hero and I give the orders. All you gotta do is follow them. You don’t want a split of this money? Fine. But don’t tell me how to run the thing, see?”
Accardo shrugged. “Okay. Like you say.”
As Accardo predicted, the shakedown blew up in the Syndicate’s face and sent the top men to prison when Bioff and Browne turned State’s evidence.
With Nitti out of the way and Accardo in the top slot, things moved faster and smoother. Accardo was given important lessons in the value of controlling unions by Lepke Buchalter and Lucky Luciano when Accardo visited New York and he remembered them. He set out to take over as many as he could.
Accardo’s first move was against the Chicago Restaurant Association. He sent some of the toughest hoods in the mob to influence the Association that he was the man to head it, if not as its president than as the dictator behind the office. The violence that followed resembled a small-scale war. Owners were beaten and their restaurants fouled by stink-bombs. Windows were smashed. Many of the patrons were slugged, some with baseball bats. The cars of both owners and patrons were damaged. Tires were slashed. Sugar was poured into gasoline tanks. Many of the cars were wired with black-powder and dynamites bombs. There were several murders as a clincher.
The Chicago Restaurant Association had enough. They wanted no more trouble. It was suggested to the heads of the Association that they hire Abraham Teitelbaum, an attorney who defended Al Capone, as their labor relations counsel. It was further suggested that Abe. Teitelbaum’s salary be a round $125,000 a year. The Association attempted to negotiate a lesser figure but finally agreed to the suggested salary. Teitelbaum then engaged Louis Romano as his labor relations expert. Romano was president of Local 278, Waiters, Waitresses, Bartenders, and Miscellaneous Workers Union. The Syndicate now had full control of the Chicago Restaurant Association.
The owners of restaurants were forced to pay an initiation fee and membership fee for each of their employees. The employees were not even told they were members of a Union and did not have recourse to a Union in case of a complaint. The Syndicate collected dues on members who changed jobs, left the city, or died. The restaurant owners paid.
“Hell,” one of the owners said, “I’d rather pay than have them put me out of business.”
As a union, The Chicago Restaurant Association was strictly a paper organization. Members were members in name only. There were no stewards, no benefits, welfare plan, or retirement plan. What it was in fact was an ideal shakedown racket.
Accardo now insisted that the restaurant owners buy Syndicate beer. Then, to use the Syndicate linen service, garbage disposal, laundry, dry cleaning vending machines, and to purchase all their appliances and fixtures.
Abraham Teitelbaum suggested to Accardo that it would be in the interest of the restaurant owners if they contributed to a “voluntary fund” for use in case labor troubles arose.
“Good idea,” Accardo said. “Set it up.”
The take was in the millions through this fund alone. As it was, the owners were coming out ahead in the deal. They paid wages far below scale. Workers had no protection. It was either take what was offered or be out of work.
Teitelbaum was growing rich, but not as rich as Accardo. The end came for Teitelbaum in 1953 when Accardo decided the lawyer had outlived his usefulness.
Paul “Needlenose” Labriola and James “Jimmy the Arm” Weinberg paid Teitelbaum a visit in his office and threatened to do two things. First, beat him half to death and then to toss him out a window. The two hoods had organized the Cook County Licensed Beverage Dealers Association, another paper organization set up to shake down the owners of liquor establishments. Teitelbaum backed down before the two hoods and agreed to their demands to surrender that portion of the Chicago Restaurant Association involving bartenders.
When Accardo heard of the move he blew his top. He fired Teitelbaum on the spot. A short time later, Labriola and Weinberg were found in the trunks of their cars. They had been garroted after being severely beaten.
Sam Giancana, Accardo’s righthand man, suggested that Anthony V. Champagne, Giancana’s mouth piece, be appointed in Teitelbaum’s place. Accardo agreed. Champagne then fired Romano and hired Sam English as Assistant Labor Relations Director. Sam English was a brother of Charles English who was the Syndicate’s man in the Twenty-ninth Ward and a partner of Giancana in many enterprises. Accardo was fond of Romano and gave him pieces of several rackets which more than satisfied him.