Those who refused to join the Association faced exorbitant wage demands from the unions, followed by strikes and stink bomb attacks, but there was no union of elderly women who worked for it, so apart from the housewives association, which didn't mean much at that point, and he as a supposed homeowner, didn't have that problem.
Where exactly it was that made it difficult to be blackmailed, and as far as he knew the housewives and supposed virtuous wives were also those of the gangsters who worked for him sewing, with the Metropolitan Association then intervened to arrange a strike agreement with a contract of love for low wages, everyone wanted to demand better wages.
Little enough to strike, and the seed was in the suggestion, and the employer contingent joining the Association, Martin managed to extract thousands of dollars of tribute and debt from terrified restaurateurs for Schultz.