In the late 1930s, Pete Panto was a longshoreman on the Brooklyn waterfront. Working conditions on the Brooklyn docks were horrid, with endemic problems such as the “shape-up” hiring system (where men waited daily to be chosen to work), mandatory salary kickbacks, extortion, and high rates of work-related injuries.

In addition, the local union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, was rife with corruption, political patronage, and mob-controlled violence. Enforcing the status quo of this foul fiefdom was gangster Albert Anastasia, head of the crime syndicate “Murder, Inc.”