Protecting picket lines is a strategy that goes back to the Chartist movement in England. The whole point of a picket line is to shut down production. Many earl

Protecting picket lines is a strategy that goes back to the Chartist movement in England. The whole point of a picket line is to shut down production. Many early labor wars involved management hiring private armies that beat up and even shot strikers. Organized cribs involvement started during McCarthyism in particular (red scares more generally). When socialists (with a rank and file power perspective) were driven out, the vacuum left was filled by mobsters (in some cases).