In answer to johnnynonos post above, I would think the Chicago mob would get the same thing from unions the NY mob does. Which is exactly why I wonder why we don't see labor racketeering indictments in Chicago.
OC expert Howard Abadinsky had an interesting comment on this in a 2000 article on the Outfit called
Mob Lite:
The Outfit is not the sole practitioner of labor racketeering, but it might be the most ingenious. In New York, for example, the Mafia influences labor unions by brute force, intimidating or corrupting union officials.
"But in Chicago," Abadinsky says, "you get labor officials who are, in fact, Outfit people." The distinction is critical, he says, because it gives the crooked union representative here a legitimate reason to be in contact with elected officials-long the essence of the Outfit's power base in Chicago.
The differences don't stop there. In New York, the Mafia profits in construction by arranging for several companies to submit excessive bids on contract work, then steps in to slightly underbid and win the business.
The Outfit, according to Abadinsky, does not bother with such complex and risky collusion. Instead, it uses its control of the unions to provide Outfit connected businesses with competitive advantages. "For example," Abadinsky says, speaking hypothetically, "an Outfit guy who controls the union that delivers food might ask a Chicago restaurant owner to buy office supplies from an Outfit-controlled supplier.
Is that illegal? He didn't say he was going to call a strike. He didn't shake the restaurant owner down. But the guy would have to be a complete idiot if he didn't throw the Outfit the office supply business."
The New York approach is clearly illegal, Abadinsky says. The Outfit's approach, via its influence in labor unions, is "remarkably sophisticated."
http://www.laborers.org/ChicagoMag_Moblite_12_00.htmBut the thing is, there are mob people in the New York unions too. That's not just a Chicago thing. And the NY mob also uses union influence to provide mob-connected businesses with competitive advantages. So, what's the real difference?
I can connect all the dots; I fail to see how it works very effectively without the threat of violence.
It's the same kind of thinking we always see, that somehow these businesses/ventures the Outfit over time was putting dozens of people in car trunks a year to control all of a sudden became complicit in their own extortion, corruption, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they get some benefit out of the union influence, and I'm sure D&P and similar companies gets a lot of contracts, etc., I would just guess it is on a relatively small scale.
