Irving (Blackie) Horowitz was born in Brooklyn around 1906.
He was a very sharp and intelligent young man who gravitated to the labor movement early on in his underworld career. But he was also astute enough to understand the importance of making friends in high places, both in the underworld and the upperworld.
This understanding of how things worked led him to forge lifelong ties to both the most powerful mafia network in New York, the Vito Genovese crime family, and to strengthen his connections and alliances with important Brooklyn political clubs and, by extension, powerful local politicians.
By the early 1950s, Irving Horowitz, or “Blackie” as he liked his underworld friends to call him, had become one of the most influential labor union leaders in all of Brooklyn and, for that matter, in all of New York City.
The Power of Blackie Horowitz
Irving Horowitz’s power stemmed from his appointment to the position of “International President” for a labor union known as the International Production, Service, and Sales Employees Union (Independent) (IPSSEU.)
The International Union was actually comprised of five smaller union locals which were listed as Locals #422, 222, 517, 719, and 815. These five locals all operated out of a single suite of offices located at 100 Livingston Street in Brooklyn.
Each of these locals was a powerful union entity in its own right.
But collectively, at the height of their membership expansion, they held a near stranglehold over 400 small plants and factories in various industries in New York and New Jersey.
They gained this control through bargaining contracts signed between these businesses and the union.
After workers and employees of those companies signed union cards, it allowed the IPSSEU to represent them in labor negotiations with their employers.
Collectively, by 1965, these five unions were said to collect more than $500,000 in union dues each year from about 12,000 workers in New York City’s five boroughs, Long Island, and Northern New Jersey.
By the early 1970s, the ISSSEU had grown to represent over 20,000 dues-paying members strong.
So, it made the union a powerhouse within the labor movement and had become a huge moneymaker for the Mafia.
The Mafia’s Huge Moneymaker
Investigators connected with the Office of the Federal Department of Labor Racketeering reported that key among its union leadership were well-known hoodlums and top Cosa Nostra figures.
