A scab is a person who crosses a union … Somehow, weirdly, people have come to view the word “scab” as not only derogatory but politically incorrect, not unlike a racial slur or referring to women as “broads.”. Over the years, the incendiary term “scab,” when used in the context of Labor-Management relations, has come to be carelessly and egregiously misapplied. New York City in the Time of COVID: Tragedy and Farce, Earth at the “Crossroads:”  Finding Our Way in a Time of Extirpation, Assange on Trial: Special Administrative Measures, Unreliable Assurances and Espionage, Trump Slaps California With Anti-Environmental Plan for Point Reyes National Seashore, Twelve Years in a Town that Supported Trump, The Rise of Christian Nationalism in America, A Manifesto for Our Times: the Challenge to Abolish Systemic Racism, A COVID Primer for Your Trump-Loving Friends.

That’s the point.

Shouting and pounding the table during contract negotiations can only get you so far. True story.

From unions’ perspective, it makes sense to employ every method at their disposal, legal or otherwise, to persuade new workers at a unionized worksite to join—and once having joined, to behave in accordance with union dictates. By 1806, the term was in common use in the U.S. as well, although other favorites included “blackleg,” “rat,” “fink,” and “ratfink.”. Can you see how our tactics are changing? If a certin company doesn’t . No matter. I don’t blame them at all for their tactics. It stung. It has become a familiar piece of trade union literature .

It is time to strike. The proper nomenclature for the aforementioned employees is simply “non-union workers.”.

Last week, readers @amyh914 and @johnjaramillo13 were wondering about the origins of “scab” as an insult for people who cross picket lines. That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” –from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The new UAW secretary-treasurer, Gary Casteel, the union’s point man during its unsuccessful 2013-14 organizing drive at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, also backs the practice. They have chosen to STOP paying Union Dues. The real scabs are the corporate overlords who minimalize the quality of life for their employees by pitting workers against others who have even less that have to pick up the crumbs in order to survive! For more than 800 years, it’s been applied to people who are untrustworthy or despicable. .

I don’t appreciate that.

“It gives you an indication of who’s paying and who isn’t.” Yet anyone with political smarts can see the ulterior motive is to ostracize and intimidate non-members. In fact I am rather proud Go Teamsters! Brawny men would cruise up and down streets where known picket line-crossers lived, honking their horns, staring at family members, making violent gestures and yelling threats.

Fire rang out and some of the strikebreakers were hit. If I see them on the street, I will counsel them on the street. My psychic impression is that members who feel you are suspiciously looking into their darker corners might have quiet arms of retaliation cross-country depending on who they can find to act out for them in your area. All I know for sure is that for as long as the vile and opportunistic Sean Payton remains coach of the Saints, I shall do two things: Root for New Orleans to lose, and continue to refer to Payton as the scabrous motherfucker he is. Have workers to replace the Striking workers (thereby shutting down the operation completely) this certain company has no choice but to meet at least some of the Union employees’ demands. Life is full of choices. UAW Local 31, which represents nearly 3,000 wage and salary workers at the Fairfax GM assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan., has published the names of non-joining workers on its website under the category, “Important Information.” One nonunion worker at the plant, insisting upon anonymity, said the motive is coercion: “They can’t have dissenters among their ranks because it doesn’t look good to anyone thinking about joining.”.

I have been scolded for it.

Gallery. Required fields are marked *. Such campaigns may produce assaults, vandalism, and among the targets, medical problems and suicide attempts. How to Determine if Your City or County Complied with the Law When Increasing Pension Formulas, Transparent California (co-founded by CPC, now owned and operated by NPRI), https://californiapolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LOGO_v2_white_269x70.png, How Unions Use "Scab" Lists to Intimidate Workers.

A SCAB doesn’t think long term, nor does he think of anything other than himself. So in doing research on Aviation World Corruption in the past month, which started with Boeing corruption, I felt these vibes from this man and started looking into machinest union corruption and mostly Boeing aviation in Washington state and South Carolina. published countless times in union publications . Unions have long sought to demonize replacement workers, union members who cross picket lines, and others whom the unions label “scabs.” Sometimes, this takes the form of implied or explicit threats or other efforts to create fear and to intimidate. Only effective when the work needed by the “boss” (be it a single business, a whole industry or an entire nation) doesn’t get done; if replacement workers do the strikers’ jobs, the strike usually fails.

In the 1700s, this term was used for someone who refused to join a labor union… By making themselves available for work in the event of a strike, they effectively lessen the power of the strike as a bargaining tool.

CA Corp. # 3295222. Al Sharpton’s Debt, Nichole Stepehns, Administrative Assistant. Some men made it past the fence but were tracked down and murdered. .

Today’s union loyalists know the power of the term “scab,” and understand that it serves their purposes more effectively than something less incendiary on the order of “replacement worker” or “strikebreaker.” To diehard unionists, scabs, even if poor and barely scraping by, are the vilest of the vile, lowest of the low. Even people who should, by rights, be familiar with its definition, seem to be confused by it. A union anti-scab campaign does more than simply express disapproval; it enables full-scale character assassination. They lived for months with a well-grounded fear of being beaten or killed—and unions are no strangers to beating or killing. It is of more than passing significance that a key organizer of those Caterpillar strikes, Dennis Williams, last June became UAW general president after having served as secretary-treasurer.

It packed a wallop. Unfortunately, today, for a myriad of reasons, referring to someone as a “scab,” even when the designation is right on the mark, can result in a backlash. Yet the court concluded: “The content of the union newsletter is protected speech, and federal law preempts the plaintiffs’ state defamation claim.”.

A "scab" a derogatory term used to describe a strike breaker. . The ugly truth is that once UAW bosses get into power, they will not tolerate any worker who refused to ‘voluntarily’ join and pay dues. UAW Local 1853 published a “Scab Report” listing the names and work stations of more than 40 Spring Hill workers.