Salvatore Avellino oversaw operations of Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 66 in Long Island. His younger brother Carmine Avellino and his son Michael Avellino followed him into the waste management rackets. For nearly 15 years, Avellino used aggressive strong-arm tactics to keep Long Island's waste hauling industry under Lucchese family control. Avellino's wife Elaine was the owner, along with other relatives of the SSC Corporation in Holtsville, New York, one of the largest waste haulers in the region. In 1983, Avellino ordered his son Michael and son-in-law Michael Malena to set fire to competitors' garbage trucks.