Syndacate is even become something of a synonym for criminal organization. In Europe the history of unions, as far as I know, has always been that of a workers' indipendent movement with socialist influence, and it never got mixed with mafia or mobsters, nor they tried to take control of it. Is it true, as depicted in most movies, that it was the opposite in the US? If so, why? How did it work, what benefits did they get from it?
How did the mob maintain control of unions?
They funded selected corrupt candidates running for union president. The Mafia would make sure they won by funding, extortion, and murder; in exchange the mob would basically run the union.
Look into Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union boss who had a falling out with the mob and "dissapeared".
Why would they want to control unions?
Money. Despite their socialist origins, unions were lucrative as all hell.
Union members, for example, construction workers, would pay their dues to the union.
Unions weren't as regulated back then, so this was basically a huge pool of money waiting to be exploited.
How did they make money from this?
Multiple ways:
They could just pillage money from the workers pension funds.
They gave their members union "jobs", where they did little to no work and still got paid. Sometimes they didn't even show up for the job.
Extort developers into paying you kickbacks by threatening to withhold labor. Good luck trying to build a shopping mall if the workers don't show up.
Is it still around today?
Laws such as Taft-Harley, LMRDA, and RICO have definetly lessened the mob influence in unions, but there are still some shady things like small towns paying for overpriced waste management" contracts