This symposium examines the role of Italian Americans as dockworkers and labor activists on the New York waterfront.   The harsh working conditions on the waterfront included the infamous “shape-up” hiring system, dangerous speed-ups, kickbacks of longshoremens’ wages to local gangsters, and corrupt union officials.

The symposium pays tribute to Peter Panto (1911-1939), a rank-and-file longshoreman and union activist who worked on the Red Hook docks on Columbia Street, Brooklyn.  Panto led a rank-and-file revolt against the crooked leadership of International Longshoremen’s Union (ILA) in the guise of union president Joseph P. Ryan (known by dockworkers as “King Joe”) and crime boss Albert Anastasia.

After a series of confrontations, the 28-year-old Panto was lured from his home on July 14, 1939 to be kidnapped and strangled on Anastasia’s orders.  His body was not found until the following year.  During that time, the area’s workers covered the neighborhood walls and sidewalks with the simple and anonymous phrases: “Dov’ è Peter Panto?” (“Where is Peter Panto?”) and “Who killed Peter Panto?”  His body was eventually exhumed from a lime pit in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.  No one was ever convicted for Panto’s murder.

Peter Panto’s activism and death lead, in part, to reforms on the waterfront in the 1950s.

Program