Who Was Joseph Glimco? Chicago's Taxi Racketeer
Mobsters DailyJoseph 'Joey' Glimco was the Chicago Outfit's man inside the taxi business — a labor racketeer who controlled the city's cab drivers' union local for roughly four decades, taxing an entire trade for the mob and outliving nearly everyone who investigated him.
A union local as a private toll booth
Glimco took control of Chicago's taxi drivers' local in the 1930s and turned it into a model labor racket: dues flowed upward, jobs were favors, and drivers who complained learned the price. It was the same system the mob ran on New York's waterfront markets, mapped in how the Mafia controlled the Fulton Fish Market — different city, different cargo, identical toll booth. Glimco's value to the Outfit was his durability: he was close to the Accardo-era leadership and answered to men like Anthony Corallo's generation of labor specialists in the national racket.
Capone ran Chicago for seven years; Glimco taxed its taxis for forty — quiet rackets outlast loud ones — which is why, with November here and the holidays coming, rewatch season belongs to the Tony Soprano Ugly Christmas Sweater: Tony in black-and-white stencil, nothing covering the design, built for holiday parties and long nights back in this world.
Hearings, indictments, and no prison
The Senate rackets hearings of the late 1950s put Glimco on national television, invoking the Fifth Amendment through a marathon of questions. Fame did not finish him. Indictments came and went; the local stayed his until a federal trusteeship pried it loose in the late 1980s. He died in 1999, around ninety, having never served a major sentence — one of the great survivors of the labor-mob century.
Frequently asked questions
What union did Joseph Glimco control? Chicago's taxi drivers' local — the chauffeurs' union covering the city's cab drivers — which he ran for roughly forty years.
Did Glimco testify before Congress? Yes. He appeared before the Senate rackets committee in the late 1950s and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Did Joseph Glimco go to prison? He faced repeated indictments but never served a major sentence for his union racket, and died a free man in 1999.
Keep reading: Joey 'Doves' Aiuppa, the boss done by the skim · Joseph 'Socks' Lanza, the fish market's mob landlord · how to become a made man · Who Was Mike Merlo? The Peacemaker Chicago's Mob Obeyed · Who Was Sam Cardinelli? Chicago's Vampire Gang Leader
From the shop: Shadows of the Underworld — the real-mafia history behind the names in this story.
Join the conversation
Still thinking about this one? That is exactly what The Social Club is for. It is the MobstersDaily Discord, and it is the best Sopranos community on the internet: serious Sopranos talk, meme wars, Friday movie nights, a casino, and an arcade, all run by fans who never stopped rewatching. If you want to be part of the Sopranos community, this is where it lives.
