The Mafia has been controlling and manipulating the garment industry in New York City since the 1910s, beating up striking employees, extorting managers for protection money, and demanding ownership stakes in the companies. That control had economic and cultural consequences felt throughout the United States.

The earliest gangsters who extorted small subcontractors and laundries were Monk Eastman and Big Jack Zelig. They were followed by more ambitious gangsters who extorted manufacturers in the garment center; they were Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen, Kid Dropper Kaplan, and Dopey Benny Fein. The next generation, led by Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, known together as the Gorilla Boys decided that there was more money to be made by taking over the unions rather than being hired by them to beat up scabs. Within days, Lepke and Gurrah began to take over unions that had been Little Augie's clients. They also extorted manufacturers into signing over pieces of their companies. They rose so high and so fast that they were invited into the National Crime Syndicate where they were the equals of Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, Longy Zwillman, and others. This endeavor completely changed labor racketeering and provided organized crime a permanent foothold, not only in the needle-trade unions but in the entire New York garment industry that lasted for decades.