Word: bioff
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Tough little Willie Bioff, big-shot labor racketeer, was testifying. "We had about 20 percent of Hollywood when we got in trouble. If we hadn't got loused up we'd of had 50 percent. I had Hollywood dancin' to my tune." Willie's compelling tune was extortion; the insistent drumbeat in the background was the threat of physical violence. Studio employees and motion-picture-machine operators joined his labor union-or else. Hollywood studio czars chipped in millions to stop the music -and keep their studios running. What finally "loused up" Willie...
...months before his death, Irey (who had always discouraged publicity) was persuaded by a publisher to tell his story to William J. Slocum. The Tax Dodgers points up one of the unpleasantly ironical facts of political life in the U.S.: that pimps (like Bioff), murderers, political racketeers and mobsters can work at their trades with impunity, and are seldom brought to book for their most serious crimes...
...born to be a hero, the A.F.L. was satisfied with him. He was eternally troubled by the brass knuckles which labor displayed to the world in years of bitter organizational and inter-union wars. And he tolerated and refused to interfere with the machinations of thugs like Willy Bioff, George Browne, George Scalise, James Bove, et al. Nine months before Scalise, the gangster king of the Building Service Union, was convicted of stealing members' dues, Green blandly asked Franklin Roosevelt to wipe out an earlier conviction for white-slaving so Scalise could apply for citizenship...
...feared. Rough and tough, Sorrell is little liked by rival studio labor leaders. Neither do they like what they think are his politics. He is now being tried before a union tribunal on charges of Communism. Nevertheless, his quickie victory had greatly increased his prestige. Not since Racketeer Willie Bioff had any labor boss been able to dictate to the studios. The way he was going, using union unity instead of extortion, Sorrell might...
Confronted with this shakedown of big shots by big shots, the Government improved upon an old police practice-wheedling small-fry criminals into testifying against bigger ones. Now big shots squealed on big shots. Nicholas Schenck's brother Joe, imprisoned for income-tax evasion, informed on Browne and Bioff-and was soon paroled. A year ago, bored with the stuffy interior of the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Browne and Bioff squealed, too. Their words convicted the Chicago mob. Afterward, they were moved to the security of the "squealer's prison," a U.S. institution at Sandstone, Minn. Last week...