Upon reading a bit about it, labor racketeering simply looks like another form of extortion.
Essentially, one is paid to preform a service where no need exists.
For instance, I show up at your office and offer to keep the place safe. Me and my guys will just need a few offices and $20,000 per month. Of course, if you say no, I can just hire a few goons to vandalize the place and rough up a few people.
And heck, if we are involved in Human Resources, I am the guy to talk to about a promotion or a no-show job.
Understand: The threat of violence is essential to what unions do.
For some gangsters, labor racketeering offered one way out of the twenties, out of the speakeasies and into the factories. A steady income, a title, an office. With labor racketeering began the long run of euphemistic job titles, wiseguys describing themselves as organizers, overseers, fixers. As the power behind a union, a gangster would not only have access to dues—that went without saying. He could also take kickbacks from workers—cash in exchange for jobs or promotions. But the real money would come from the factory owners. Just like a holdup: Give us what we want or your employees walk. And it was good work, like a real job, with an office and a secretary. All they needed was a telephone and the threat of violence, which danced between their words, as abstract and real as sunlight on water.
-Rich Cohen, Tough Jews