57 Facts About Joseph Glimco

Joseph Glimco was considered "Chicago's top labor racketeer" in the 1950s.

Joseph Glimco was a capo in the Chicago Outfit, an organized crime syndicate, and oversaw the syndicate's labor racketeering efforts.

Joseph Glimco worked closely with Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, who led the Chicago Outfit from 1943 to 1957, and Sam "Momo" Giancana, who led the syndicate from 1957 to 1966.

Joseph Glimco was known as "Little Tim" Murphy, a reference to Timothy "Big Tim" Murphy, a Chicago mobster and labor racketeer whom the Chicago Outfit feared and subsequently murdered in 1928.

Joseph Glimco was born Giuseppe Glielmi in Puglietta, a frazione of the town of Campagna in the Province of Salerno, Campania in Italy, in 1909, and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1913, settling in Chicago.

Joseph Glimco had two brothers, including Frank, and a sister.

Joseph Glimco attended public school but quit after the seventh grade to earn a living as a shoeshiner and newspaper delivery boy.

Joseph Glimco owned two newsstands when he was 20 years old.

Around the time of his marriage, Joseph Glimco became an associate of important Chicago Outfit leaders Tony Accardo and Louis "Little New York" Campagna.

Joseph Glimco applied to become a naturalized US citizen in November 1931, but his application was turned down in November 1932 due to his extensive criminal record.

Joseph Glimco applied again in June 1938, and was denied for the same reasons in July 1939.

Joseph Glimco applied a final time in 1940, and his petition was approved in 1943.

Joseph Glimco had an extensive career as a labor racketeer in the 1930s.

Joseph Glimco was overseeing the extortion of the city's Fulton Street and Randolph Street poultry dealers by 1934, and two years later was such a prominent labor racketeer that the Chicago Tribune named him one of Al Capone's chief soldiers.

Joseph Glimco started to exercise more active control of Taxi Drivers Local 777 as well as the Produce Drivers union.

In 1944, Joseph Glimco was elected secretary-treasurer of Local 777, and in 1950 became the local's sole pension and welfare fund trustee.

Joseph Glimco's influence spread within the mob and the Chicago labor movement beginning in 1950.

That year, Joseph Glimco made a strong push to take over the Chicago Federation of Labor, terrorizing influential local labor leaders with repeated bombings and drive-by shootings.

Joseph Glimco forced Abata out of Local 777 in 1951 by making death threats against him, his wife, and his children, replaced him with cab driver Joe Coca, and in 1952 was employed by the local as a negotiator.

Joseph Glimco was elected a delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Illinois Federation of Labor, and Teamsters Joint Council of Chicago.

Joseph Glimco attended a meeting of top Chicago Outfit leaders at the home of Tony Accardo in April 1952, and a meeting of the Outfit's top labor racketeers at the home of Murray "The Camel" Humphreys in 1953.

Humphreys was pushed out of active involvement in most organized crime activities in 1954 due to failing eyesight, and Joseph Glimco was named his successor.

Joseph Glimco began supporting up-and-coming Teamsters official Jimmy Hoffa in the late 1940s.

Joseph Glimco brokered the deal in which the Chicago Outfit supported Hoffa's organizing drives among Midwestern drivers in exchange for Joseph Glimco's access to Local 777's finances.

Joseph Glimco's actions positioned him to support either man: If Beck won, Joseph Glimco's actions in 1952 proved his allegiance to Beck.

Joseph Glimco challenged the constitutionality of the Hobbs Act and claimed the statute of limitations had run out, assertions the government contested.

Joseph Glimco was elected president of Local 777 on March 10,1958.

Joseph Glimco initially refused to turn over the records but would let the Select Committee view them in his presence, and then claimed that he had no personal records.

The Select Committee investigated the union contracts Joseph Glimco negotiated in June 1958, and Joseph Glimco's alleged domination of various Teamster unions in July 1958.

Joseph Glimco testified before the Select Committee for the second time on March 12,1959, but repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights again and again.

In October 1958, a member of Local 777's taxicab drivers' union filed a ULP against Joseph Glimco for depriving him of the full amount due him by the union's pension and welfare fund and for inducing the man's employer to discharge him for requesting the full amount.

On March 20,1959, the Occidental Life Insurance Company removed Joseph Glimco as disbursing and certifying official in charge of the Local 777 welfare fund.

Joseph Glimco was immediately sued by union members, who sought to restore the welfare fund.

Joseph Glimco sued Occidental Life, and won a $54,000 judgment against the company in August 1960 for violating its contract with the union.

Joseph Glimco expelled a number of DUOC supporters from the union in late September despite the passage of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act on September 14,1959, generally forbidding the denial of union members' rights on political grounds.

Joseph Glimco pleaded not guilty, and attempted to quash the indictment but was unsuccessful.

The NLRB subpoenaed Local 777 records as part of its investigation, and Joseph Glimco refused to turn them over even after a court ordered him to do so.

The hearings ended on March 11,1960, when Joseph Glimco advised the NLRB that he would not turn over any records.

The NLRB's investigator said Joseph Glimco had colluded with Yellow Cab and Checker Cab to negotiate and enforce closed shop clauses in its collective bargaining agreements in violation of the Taft-Hartley Act.

Joseph Glimco was granted a delay on May 30,1961, and refunded dues to just four cab drivers by June.

Joseph Glimco attempted to organize taxicab drivers in suburban Chicago, which would demonstrate worker support for him and his administration of the union, but was unsuccessful.

Joseph Glimco sent numerous Teamsters staff into Chicago, ordering them to do everything possible to support Glimco and Local 777.

Joseph Glimco filed an emergency petition with the NLRB seeking a halt to the election plans.

Joseph Glimco immediately began to fight to regain control of the rebel cab drivers and mechanics.

Joseph Glimco needed to strengthen his control in Chicago in order to discourage the rebellions, or else the Chicago Outfit would remove him from power.

Joseph Glimco's only remaining tactic was to regain control over the breakaway cab drivers and mechanics via a second union representational organizing election, and that is the strategy he subsequently pursued.

Joseph Glimco declared the DUOC contract to be a sweetheart deal, and sued to prevent it from coming into force.

DUOC alleged that Local 777 attorneys were corrupt and Joseph Glimco tried to have the court void the union shop provisions of the contract as a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act, but in November 1962 Judge Miner ruled that the contract was valid and could be enforced.

The investigation began in the fall of 1961, when federal investigators concluded that Joseph Glimco owed $144,000 in back taxes.

Joseph Glimco appealed to the US Supreme Court, but the Court rejected his appeal on December 9,1968.

Joseph Glimco delayed paying the taxes and fines for another year, and in February 1970 the federal government filed suit to seize his home and automobile in order to obtain payment.

Joseph Glimco agreed to pay the taxes, but did not do so until May 1973.

Concurrently with his tax troubles, Joseph Glimco was indicted for violations of the Taft-Hartley Act again.

In 1970, Senator John McClellan sponsored and the Congress passed the Organized Crime Control Act, a law crafted partly in response to the difficulty law enforcement officials had in breaking Joseph Glimco's hold on the Chicago taxi drivers' union.

Joseph Glimco made a rare public appearance in 1972 when he attended the funeral of Paul Ricca.

Joseph Glimco is buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Hillside, Illinois.

Joseph Glimco is portrayed in Martin Scorsese's film The Irishman, by Bo Dietl.