# Becoming a company goon

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becoming-a-company-goon/20459>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 24, 2000, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becoming-a-company-goon/20459 "2000-05-24T21:15:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2000, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becoming-a-company-goon/20459/21 "2000-05-26T17:51:29Z")

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The point of my original question was not to imply that labor-management relations exist like they did prior to the New Deal. I was just curious on who these security forces were.

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**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2000, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/becoming-a-company-goon/20459/22 "2000-05-26T18:52:44Z")

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In places like Minneapolis during the Teamsters’ Strike of 1934, hired goons were also deputized by the police department and the sheriff. Not only were they protected from prosecution, their headbusting actions were often legally sanctified. Good book to check out is _Teamster Rebellion_ by Farrell Dobbs.

As for **BobT** ’s OP, basically the companies themselves or agencies like Pinkerton’s went out and actively recruited - advertising, word-of-mouth, etc. During periods of labor unrest the recruiting got even more aggressive, often with a hard patriotic edge to it as well. The local and county police had a hand in fielding recruits as well.

IIRC, one scene in _Matewan_ showed a fresh recruit to the goon squad quoting an advertisement verbatim with the others making fun of him for falling for the line. (Kick-ass movie, BTW.)

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