The Tony Soprano Enabling Act
18th August 2015
Labor gangsterism—mob-run labor unions that loot pension funds, make back-room deals with both politicians and companies that favor union management over workers, and support crooked big city machines as part of a strategy to keep law enforcement at bay—is one of America’s oldest union traditions. How important has the mob been in labor history? Ask Jimmy Hoffa, if you can find him.
Now, a recent rash of minimum wage laws have created a huge new opportunity for mafia enrichment: laws that hike the minimum wage to utterly unrealistic levels, but allow companies to pay less than the minimum wage—if the low wages are part of a collective bargaining agreement with a labor union.
August 19th, 2015 at 06:56
I suspect that the constant drum-beat of anti-unionism engaged in by the right and “free-market capitalists” is nothing more than envy and resentment that other kids are being allowed to play in the same sandbox.
Long before The Mob got involved in labor unions, they were already hard at work on behalf of the big-business, big-money interests who were rigging the system to favor themselves (can you say Tammany Hall?). Men like John Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan were not above engaging the Dark Side thugs in order to establish/expand their monopolistic empires.