Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union

"It was born as a union of horse-and-buggy newspaper deliverymen at the turn of the century, a stepchild of the fledgling labor movement and New York's yellow journalism wars.

"[3] In 1945, the NMDU went on strike, so New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia struck back by reading newspaper comics aloud on his Sunday radio show.

In the 1970s, mobster Samuel "Red" Levine was involved with the NMDU: Formed in the early 1900s, the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union was equal parts Irish, Italian, and Jewish, a reflection of the city's then dominant ethnic groups.

Law enforcement officials, as well as longtime union members and mob associates (often the same thing in the NMDU) say that Levine cleverly allowed each of the city's five Mafia families to have a piece of the newspaper delivery action, which included bootleg sales of stolen papers as well as loan-sharking and gambling among drivers.

A federal grand jury under Robert B. Fiske Jr., United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, began holding hearings.

[9] In 1981, Robert B. Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to paying NMDU officials $37,000 in exchange for favorable treatment in dealings between the union and his companies.

[12] In the 2000s, Bonanno crime family members and associates involved in the News and Mail Deliverer's Union were incarcerated for racketeering with regard to circulation of the New York Post (see entry on Robert Perrino).

[2] In 2014, the FBI arrest six people associated with the NMDU for conspiring obtain a union job fraudulently for the some of an organized crime underboss.