Political radicalism blocked organized crime infiltration of waterfront unions [causal]
- Similarly, in the United States organized crime managed to infiltrate the waterfront unions only on the East Coast, where there were no traces of political radicalism. When racketeers tried to penetrate the West Coast unions, they were thrown out by the Red Guards of Harry Bridges (Kimeldorf 1988: 122ff.).
XREF: Connects to broader literature on how leftist/labor militancy historically defended against racketeering, relevant to comparative criminology and labor history.
Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 867