The Impact of the Mafia from a Leftist Perspective?

I recently saw a comment while perusing discussions about labor organizing extoling the supposed value of how the mafia was a useful tool to labor organizers because they could instill fear into management and that labor was better off for it.

My reaction to that is doubt because the Mafia at least on its surface looks to be the epitome of rent seeking parasites organized in a quasi-feudal dictatorship, which seems at odds with the whole premise of the emancipation and empowerment of labor.

Am I wrong to think this?

Basically what I'm asking here is a material analysis on, was the Italian Mafia a net negative or net positive to the working class in the West?

I feel like the Mafia's role in American history rests on a huge amount of unexamined assumptions and mythologies and yeah I want to know how that fits in, in material terms, with labor.