On 5 Jul 1777 the word 'scab', a highly derogatory and fighting term to describe a'strikebreaker', was used in print for the first time. One of the most important words in the working-class vocabulary!
The term is actually derived from the Old English sceabb and the Old Norse skabb (both meaning “scab, itch”), the word “scab” had become an insult by the late 1500s, having adopted a secondary definition that meant “a lowlife“.
With an increasing number of strikes, and therefore replacement workers, during the second half of the 18th century in England, the word “scab” was put into use as a derogatory term for strikebreakers, as noted in Bonner & Middleton’s Bristol Journal in 1777:
The Conflict [between labor and capital] would not been [sic] so sharp had not there been so many dirty Scabs; no Doubt but timely Notice will be taken of them.'
As one contemporary source explained in 1792;
“What is a scab? He is to his trade what a traitor is to his country…. He first sells the journeymen, and is himself afterwards sold in his turn by the masters, till at last he is despised by both and deserted by all.”
By 1806, the word was in common use alongside other favorites including “blackleg,”and “ratfink.” Blackleg may not be perfectly interchangeable with scab, though; some sources say that a scab is generally an outsider to the company hired specifically for strikebreaking, where a blackleg is a worker who predates the strike and chooses not to participate. The etymology is pretty unclear on this one. One theory suggests that the insult might relate to rooks, birds with black legs. Rooks were distinctly disliked in some parts of the world. Other theories suggest that it references miners with pant-legs rolled up, showing coal dust or oil as evidence of work. Like scab, blackleg is also associated with disease. In modern times, it’s more commonly used to indicate a specific disease common to cows and sheep than it is organized labor or strikebreakers. It has also, at times, been associated with cheaters and gamblers.
Ratfinks has fallen in and out of use a few times, both used specifically for strikebreakers and more generally. The general insult is for tattle-tales or untrustworthy people. That as a synonym for strikebreakers makes sense then, based on the view of strikebreakers at the time. The rat part seems natural, and again associates strikebreakers with symbols of disease. It also has a tenuous link to birds, like blacklegs, in that “fink” might be based on the German word for “finch”. That would make both halves of the word reminiscent of phrases like “ratted out” or “sing like a canary”, which also refer to giving up allies to authorities for punishment. The fear of informants wasn’t paranoia either; anti-union groups like the Pinkertons did genuinely send in spies to undermine labor organizations. This is the basis of another etymological theory for the word, which is that a linguistic shift turned “pink”, as a reference to the Pinkertons, into ‘fink’. After the labor movement settled, use of the word “ratfink” fell out of style until the 1960s, where it became more generalized in use again.
Whenever workers refuse to work in order to gain concessions, it is called a strike. Strikes were an important part of the early labor movement, which agitated for safer working conditions, better pay, and more reasonable hours. These early strikes were often brutally put down, and workers had a choice between going back to work and starving. Labor unions attempted to help with this by organizing workers, who paid dues that could be used to support them during a strike. A single scab could greatly weaken the cause of the union.
In response to more organized labor, companies started to recruit people who were willing to break the strike. These people might be existing employees or outside contractors.Also throughout the 19th century, scabs in the U.S. were frequently recruited from new immigrant and other economically challenged communities, and often had no idea they would be breaking a strike until they crossed the picket line. Regardless, scabs were reviled, looked down upon and treated with disdain.It is common for striking workers picketing a workplace to chant the word ‘scab’ at other workers who cross the picket line.
By crossing the picket line of strikers marching and holding signs for better working conditions, the strike breaker hurts the cause of the workers. For this reason, the term “scab” started to become widespread, as this was someone who behaved dishonorably in 18th century culture. Retaliation against such workers could sometimes be brutal and can result in them being shunned or assaulted.
A classic example from United Kingdom industrial history is that of the miners from Nottinghamshire, who during the 1984-1985 miners' strike did not support strike action by fellow mineworkers in other parts of the country. Those who supported the strike claimed that this was because they enjoyed more favorable mining conditions and, thus, better wages and were used as pawns in Margaret Thatcher's bitter war against the organised working class of the UK. When the strike was over members of the scab Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) settled in for the long period of prosperity and security promised them by a grateful establishment. Their UDM leader Roy Lynk was awarded an OBE for ‘services to trade unionism’ but after paving the way for mass pit closures and privatisation, he and Nottinghamshire’s former strike-breakers. to their fury, they too were betrayed as Nottinghamshire’s pits were closed in contrast to the promises lavished upon them during the strike.
Trade Unionists also use the epithet “scab” to refer to workers who are willing to accept terms that union workers have rejected and interfere with the strike action.The term is also used to refer to workers who cave too easily to concessions offered by a company. Labor activists believe that striking is an effective tool, and that if the workers band together, they can achieve their goals. Workers who agree to partial concessions weaken the cause of the whole, as do people who work through the strike. Sometimes, striking workers are surprised when the temporary workers hired to replace them up becoming permanent.
When a strike is in progress, people who support it should refrain from crossing the picket line. Workers typically form a band in front of the company they work for to inform people that a strike is going on, and why. By crossing the picket line, scabs and consumers indicate that they are not concerned about the rights of the workers, and they weaken the case of the strikers.
It is simply an iron law of working-class life that you never betray your fellow worker during a legitimate and official strike. You never cross a picket line and take the side of the boss. You never scab on your colleagues. It's such a crappy thing to do and simply goes against the principles of solidarity and unity.
One of the greatest weapons that workers and oppressed people possess is their unity. It is only by coming together in solidarity. it is only through closing ranks against the common enemy, that any victory has ever been won by the masses of people. Working-class solidarity is present in every picket, every union action, every strike and any time workers take a stand against the bosses. If workers go on strike, only a scab or a boss will cross the picket line, while all workers who feel solidarity with each other refuse.
Workers formed trade unions and continue to organize into unions today out of the knowledge that only through banding together in solidarity can even the slightest improvement be gained in working conditions, wages, job security, and so forth.
We should have no sympathy for a scab. A “replacement worker” (to use the sanitized terminology) is helping the boss to break a strike. If the strike fails, the majority of striking workers will lose the pay they lost during the strike, face cuts, and endure victimization and potential permanent replacement by the scab workers. The “individual” right of the scab is in direct opposition to the individual right of the striker to survive. If scabs are allowed to scab with impunity we will live in a world with no workers’ rights and no unions – a bosses’ paradise where workers live under the boot of management. Never cross a picket line, the stain of being a scab lasts forever.
With an upsurge of union struggle today.With thousands on strike across the country, the power of our unions comes from the fact that all profit comes from workers. Stopping scabs is a key way to use that power.
Far better than being a scab is to standing in solidarity with all of those who are fighting back against attacks from the state whether it be the striking postal workers, rail workers, nurses, unemployed people who are having their benefits cut, people fighting against repossessions, asylum seekers and immigrants in their daily battle against racist immigration laws and fighting deportations, black and young people in their fight against police harassment, the Palestinian resistance against occupation. I personally believe that in this moment. when Palestinians are suffering increasing brutality from an Israeli government determined to reify ethno-supremacy and maintain their system of apartheid .to cross the BDS picket line is to ne a scab.
The final word belongs to the American writer, journalist and socialist Jack London (1876-1916) who expertly summed up in his 1915 poem what a scab was and why you should never be one.By any definition, a scab is not someone you really want to associate with.:
Ode To A Scab - Jack London 1876 -1916
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class."
