Recently released FBI Documents in regard to The Purple Gang

[Richard]

Seeing an opportunity to bring organized crime to Detroit, Francis X. Martel of the Detroit Federation of Labor asked Chicagoan Ben Abrams to establish a cleaner’s organization that could be used as a front for the Purple Gang. Abrams founded the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association, which pledged to stabilize the market by controlling prices and prevent tailors from switching cleaning companies without cause. Before returning to Chicago, Abrams named Charles Jacoby Jr. as the president of the new association. Jacoby was the brother-in-law of Abe Burnstein, who with his brothers formed the core of the Purple Gang.

https://detroithistorical.org/learn/...-and-dyers-war

Its not my reading comprehension,you are confusing two different methods of exploiting companies and workers.

They made money on setting up a co-op of sorts where you can price fix and force the companies to join in order to control.

But you cannot do that with out leverage,they tried using fear as a leverage,they would not be calling themselves the Detroit Federation Of Labor or ask Ben Abrams to establish an organization.

To prevent tailors from switching companies without cause - you can call it what you like but they formed a union and was using the labor force as leverage instead of violence because they wanted to have the credibility to use it as a front.

They would not had to have done none of that,they could have just forced the business to pay protection money.

It was no different the how the mob was tied to the unions for the next 90 years and could possibly be the same as it is today.

They would not have just been exploiting the businesses,they would have formed the union so they could also exploit the workers,why would they leave money on the table and why would they have had to ask the Chicago outfit to show them how to do it,maybe because they were already doing it in Chicago.

The purple gang was not mobsters,they started out as thieves robbing bootleggers as they landed back on shore from Canada and candy stores,at best they were a bunch of thugs that was in the right place in time and had to ask Chicago and the Italians how to be a mobster,but even at that they were careless and reckless which is what brought them down.

It does not take a genius to walk into a store and say pay me $50 every week or I will blow your store up.

But that is why they call them a gang,no different then the bloods or crips,just on a smaller scale.

You keep calling them a cartel,they were not a cartel.

Years ago we formed a “cartel” in the auto salvage business,we all put money in the pot and bought up salvage vehicles and prevented the competition from buying,because we could pay more.

Nobody was forced to join and we did not threaten anybody,did not need to.

That method has never been illegal,you can argue it is immoral,but to this day it is common practice to buy up all the competition in order to gain market share and control prices.

Standard oil did it back them,The Chinese do it today.

So what they were doing already in forming the cartel was not illegal in it self,it was the methods that they used,but in order to use it as a front,they could not be blowing things up,so they asked Chicago to show them how to use the labor force as in a union to force the companies to pay.

So they were able to double dip,forcing companies to pay to join the cartel and forcing the union members to pay dues,it was legal and could be used as a front.

it’s not reading comprehension,you just do not understand how it works and the only thing you have is the reading part which tells you what happened but not the how and why.

That’s book smarts without the ability to apply it in real life.

Short of that,maybe take the time to read the files in their entirety that was posted at the beginning.

But that was probably another TLDR for you,you need pictures and things that are small words and just a couple to comprehend without being overwhelmed.