John C. Montana - Buffalo's Business Elite

Buffalo's Business Elite

While his high level role within the Mafia wasn’t known publicly, his stature among Buffalo’s Italians was obvious. When 300 Italians representing 45 Italian organizations came to the glamorous Statler Hotel in downtown Buffalo to celebrate Columbus Day in the early 1930s, Councilman Montana was one of the honored guests noted by the local newspapers, along with the mayor, Edward H. Butler who started the Buffalo News and the Buffalo State Library, the police commissioner, the general manager of the Chamber of Commerce, a representative from the U.S. House, a State Assemblyman, and other politically-powerful Italians including, Charles Giambrone, Charles Martini, Vincent Tauriello, Msgr. Joseph Gambino, and Frank Gugino.

However, Montana wasn’t always in the press as an acclaimed Buffalonian and respected civic leader. In late 1932, he was in public view because he was facing new competition in the taxicab industry. The Gray Cab Company came to town as an independent business in 1932 and brought enough money to charge substantially less than the dominant cab companies, namely Van Dyke Taxi. Van Dyke temporarily lowered their prices to meet the new competition, but many of the smaller independent companies could not afford to lower their rates and began going out of business.

While most companies saw the lowered rates as a death blow, Montana saw it as an opportunity to freeze out the competition and eliminate some rivals. In September 1932, The Association of Taxicab Owners and Operators of Buffalo, NY, asked the Common Council to combat the new taxi companies and make fares standard across the board. Allegedly, Montana (who still held a seat on the Council) shelved the issue and the City didn’t act – officially because the Council didn’t want to meddle in the affairs of private businesses.

After the rival cab company came to town with a lowered wage system for several months, many smaller cab businesses had to shut their doors as they couldn't compete and turn a profit. After a few went out of business, there was a labor dispute and 200 employees of the Gray Cab Company went on strike. While Montana was never publicly linked to the strike, rumors were made back in 1932 that his associates instigated the Gray Cab employees to strike for more wages, ultimately causing the company to temporarily stop transporting passengers.

While Montana’s alleged role in the labor dispute was unknown, he faced his own labor problems less than three years later when some of his drivers went on strike. In January 1935, the local Teamsters union for taxi drivers was having what Montana later called a “civil war.” With over three hundred drivers in the union, Business Agent Joe Gerrity of Teamsters Local 153 had a meeting in the back of a saloon and his riders decided to go on strike with a vote of 184-9. At first, the newspapers reported 325 drivers were on strike, mostly from Van Dyke Taxi owned by Montana and the 50-50 Taxi Company owned by Montana’s good friend Charles Sedita.

In reality, the strike was doomed from the start. As Montana quickly pointed out to the drivers, they needed 2/3 of their union ranks to agree to a strike; with only 184 voting for the strike, Montana claimed it was illegal; the taxi tycoon also said he never negotiated on the union’s strike because he was never presented with a list of problems or demands. Through negotiations with the union’s secretary-treasurer Charles Strauss, the Teamsters’ taxicab drivers weren’t off work for more than a month. According to the influential Montana, “Gerrity called the strike out of spite. We have 223 drivers living up to President Roosevelt’s desire to spread out work. We kept them all working. Gerrity wanted me to discharge 40 workers so there could be more work for remaining operators. I refused.”

Through tricky political speech, Montana praised the popular president and alluded to the fact that employment should be spread out to many, not just saved for a few people. After Montana’s cabs were back and running in February, he wouldn’t allow many of the strike’s instigators to come back to work; some had to issue a formal apology before returning.

While this was a very prominent time for Montana’s taxi business, he was ironically the mover behind a controversial taxi-related issue consuming much of the time of Albany’s politicos. During the same time as these strikes in 1935, the State Senate was considering the Buchill-Canney Act. According to this, all cabs in cities with a large amount of taxis would be publicly run by the city’s service departments; only Buffalo and New York City were large enough to be affected by this bill.

On the front page of Taxi Age, the national trade weekly for the taxi industry, Montana figured importantly in a headline story about corrupt cab owners and their links to politics. In short, the publication accused Montana of bribing Anthony Canney (D-BFLO) and said the official was in “cahoots” with Van Dyke. While most taxi operators viewed the bill as a blatant disregard for private business, Montana (the second largest cab owner in the state) viewed it with open arms (and may have even helped write it). Montana’s ties to city services, City Streets Dept, and the entire Common Council meant that he could control even more in the taxi industry through a seat in city government, as opposed to the seat behind a desk at Van Dyke. In an era when public transportation was first becoming an idea, Montana wanted cabs run by the city – a city that the consiglieri of Buffalo’s Mafia had already infiltrated. While his Van Dyke cabs were forming a near monopoly over the taxi industry, Montana knew he could control a complete monopoly if the city were allowed to operate all the cabs as public transportation – this would be a legal monopoly.