Labor Slugger Wars

The Labor Sluggers War was a 15-year period of gang wars among New York City labor sluggers for control of labor racketeering from 1911 to 1927. This began in 1911 with the first war between "Dopey" Benny Fein and Joe "The Greaser" Rosenzweig against a coalition of smaller gangs and continuing on and off until the murder of Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro in 1927.

With the industrialization of the United States and the emergence of labor unions in the late nineteenth century and into the early 1900s, street gangs began to be hired by companies as strikebreakers and to discourage union activity. Unions themselves would also hire labor sluggers primarily as protection from these strikebreakers and to recruit, by force if necessary, new union members. Many of these workers were recently arriving immigrants, particularly Jewish and Italians, in New York's East Side. Gangs made up of immigrants from similar backgrounds often sided with unions of their compatriots, but also were quick to exploit the lucrative opportunities for labor racketeering.

By 1912 two major gangs, one led by "Dopey" Benny Fein and another by Joe "The Greaser" Rosenzweig, dominated labor slugging in New York. The various remaining gangs, who had been largely rendered powerless by Fein and Rosenzweig's brutal tactics, united in a loose alliance in an attempt to break the monopoly held by the two gang leaders.

Declaring war, a major gunfight was fought on Grand and Forsyth Streets in late-1913 between Fein and Rosenzweig against several gangs, including Billy Lustig, Philip Paul, Little Rhody, Punk Madden (not to be confused with Prohibition gangster Owney Madden), and Moe Jewbach. While there were no casualties on either side, gang leader Paul was later killed by Rosenzweig gunman Benny Snyder.

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