I've been listening to the Oral History of the Kickstarter Union and I don't believe the charge of rent seeking or the implication of close ties to organized cr

I've been listening to the Oral History of the Kickstarter Union and I don't believe the charge of rent seeking or the implication of close ties to organized crime is accurate. Rent seeking usually refers to creating new income streams for yourself without providing any benefit by acting as a middle person, and unions do provide benefits to workers, in the form of collective negotiation for individual benefits, but also a seat at the table when it comes to how the business is run. I also get the sense that the organized crime connections of unions are overblown. Like that settlement was I believe a way to end the consent decree that's been in existence since 1989. And the arrest of the Lucchese crime family in 2017 didn't seem to include any members of liuna local 66. I believe the mob tax is actually a reference to crimes that happened back in the late 90s involving the Scalamandres brothers. If they were doing anything with the union it was exploiting it, and blaming the victim doesn't seem fair. Here are my references for the above https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-proposed-settlement-agreement-landmark-civil-rico https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-a... https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/alleged-street-boss-and-underboss-la-cosa-nostra-family-charged-murder-and-racketering https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/alleged-street-boss-and... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/nyregion/brothers-plead-guilty-in-mob-payoffs-for-construction-businesses.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/nyregion/brothers-plead-g... https://engelberg-center-live.simplecast.com/episodes https://engelberg-center-live.simplecast.com/episodes