WEBVTT NOTE 30. The Scab 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Chapter 30 The Scab 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:10.000 One of the most universally shared attitudes is that the scab is a wretched character. 3 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.000 He is unscrupulous and sneakily in league with the boss. 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Together, scab and boss plot to deprive union workers of their rights 5 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.000 and of the jobs that are legitimately theirs. 6 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Scabs are hired to force union workers to accept lower wages. 7 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:36.240 When it becomes known that scabs are also used to beat up union workers and pickets, 8 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.800 the case is virtually complete. 9 00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:43.020 The scab is the greatest enemy of the worker. 10 00:00:43.020 --> 00:00:47.400 These are the facts that are taught in many of our centers of learning, to be challenged 11 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:51.120 only at the risk of one's reputation as a scholar. 12 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:55.340 Nevertheless, this flummery must be refuted. 13 00:00:55.340 --> 00:01:01.780 The first point to establish is that a job is not a thing which can be owned by a worker 14 00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:03.780 or by anyone else. 15 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:09.860 A job is the manifestation of a trade between a worker and an employer. 16 00:01:09.860 --> 00:01:15.420 The worker trades his labor for the money of the employer at some mutually agreeable 17 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:17.540 rate of exchange. 18 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:23.660 So when we speak of my job, we are only talking figuratively. 19 00:01:23.660 --> 00:01:30.700 Although we are in the habit of using such phrases as my job, my customer and my tailor, 20 00:01:30.700 --> 00:01:35.300 we do not presume ownership in any of these instances. 21 00:01:35.300 --> 00:01:38.700 Take first the case of my customer. 22 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:43.700 If this phrase were taken literally, it would denote that the merchant has an ownership 23 00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:48.940 right over the custom of the people who habitually buy from him. 24 00:01:48.940 --> 00:01:54.820 He would own the customer's patronage, and he would, therefore, have a right to object 25 00:01:54.820 --> 00:01:59.180 if his customer patronized another merchant. 26 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:01.460 The sword cuts both ways. 27 00:02:01.460 --> 00:02:04.500 Let us take the case of my tailor. 28 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:09.300 If we were to take this phrase literally, we would have to say that the tailor may not 29 00:02:09.300 --> 00:02:16.820 shut down his shop, relocate or declare himself bankrupt without the permission of the customers. 30 00:02:16.820 --> 00:02:20.260 He is their tailor. 31 00:02:20.260 --> 00:02:25.440 In both these cases, of course, it is clear that the possessive pronoun is not meant to 32 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:28.220 imply literal possession. 33 00:02:28.220 --> 00:02:34.340 Clearly, neither buyer or seller has the right to insist upon the permanence of a business 34 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:42.980 relationship, unless, of course, a long-term contract has been agreed upon by both parties. 35 00:02:42.980 --> 00:02:48.840 One and only then would the merchant and the customer have the right to object if either 36 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:54.000 party ended the relationship without the consent of the other. 37 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.500 Now let us consider my job. 38 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:04.200 What is the worker implying when he objects to the scab taking his job away? 39 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:08.240 The worker is arguing as though he owned the job. 40 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:14.400 He is, in other words, assuming that service, after a certain period of time, obligates 41 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:20.680 the employer to the employee as strictly as if they had agreed to a contract. 42 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:26.640 But in fact, the employer has never obligated himself contractually. 43 00:03:26.640 --> 00:03:32.200 One wonders how the workers would react if the principle upon which their anti-scab feeling 44 00:03:32.200 --> 00:03:36.040 is based were adopted by the employer. 45 00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:41.920 How would they feel if employers assumed the right to forbid long-term workers from leaving 46 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:43.880 their employment? 47 00:03:43.880 --> 00:03:51.080 What if he accused another employer who dared to hire his worker of being a scab? 48 00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:55.440 Yet the situation is entirely symmetrical. 49 00:03:55.440 --> 00:04:00.920 Clearly there is something wrong with an argument which asserts that once people voluntarily 50 00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:16.800 by what shift in logic is a voluntary relationship converted into a strictly involuntary relationship? 51 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:23.240 Hiring an individual does not imply slave-holding rights over that person, nor does having worked 52 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:27.880 for an employer give one the right to a job. 53 00:04:27.880 --> 00:04:34.760 It should be evident that the worker never owns the job, that it is not his job. 54 00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:41.560 The scab, therefore, is guilty of no irregularity when he takes the job which the worker formerly 55 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:42.920 held. 56 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:48.240 The issue of violence between workers and scabs is a separate issue. 57 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:54.440 The initiation of violence is condemnable, and when scabs initiate violence, they deserve 58 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:56.120 our censure. 59 00:04:56.120 --> 00:05:00.820 But the initiation of violence is not their defining characteristic. 60 00:05:00.820 --> 00:05:08.000 When they engage in it, they do so as individuals, not as scabs qua scabs. 61 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.940 Milkmen, after all, sometimes go berserk and commit aggression against non-aggressors. 62 00:05:13.940 --> 00:05:21.140 No one would take this as proof that the delivery of milk is an intrinsically evil enterprise. 63 00:05:21.140 --> 00:05:26.700 In like manner, the use of illegitimate violence on the part of scabs does not render the 64 00:05:26.700 --> 00:05:30.700 enterprise of scabbing illegitimate. 65 00:05:30.700 --> 00:05:36.700 In recent times, the muddled and inconsistent thinking about scabs has become increasingly 66 00:05:36.700 --> 00:05:37.700 evident. 67 00:05:37.700 --> 00:05:44.080 Liberals, traditionally most vociferous in denouncing scabs, have of late shown signs 68 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:46.640 of confusion on this issue. 69 00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:52.380 They have come to realize that in virtually all cases the scabs are poorer than the workers 70 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:59.680 they seek to replace, and liberals have almost always championed the poor worker. 71 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:02.980 Also the specter of racism has been raised. 72 00:06:02.980 --> 00:06:09.880 In many cases black scabs have been pitted against white unionized workers, Mexican workers 73 00:06:09.880 --> 00:06:17.320 Workers Against Mexican-American Workers, Japanese Workers Against Higher-Paid American Workers. 74 00:06:17.320 --> 00:06:23.500 The Ocean Hill-Brownsville Decentralization School Board clash in Brooklyn, New York is 75 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:26.360 a dramatic case in point. 76 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:32.360 Under the local school board system, Rhodie McCoy, the black school board administrator, 77 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:39.060 fired several white teachers for alleged racist behavior toward their young black pupils. 78 00:06:39.060 --> 00:06:45.820 In response, the white-dominated United Federation of Teachers Union struck the entire New York 79 00:06:45.820 --> 00:06:51.300 City educational system, including Ocean Hill Brownsville. 80 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:57.260 If the black Ocean Hill Brownsville school district was to continue to function, unit 81 00:06:57.260 --> 00:07:03.240 administrator McCoy would have to find replacements for the striking white teachers. 82 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:04.400 He did. 83 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:07.540 And they were, naturally, scabs. 84 00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:10.700 Hence the quandary faced by the Liberals. 85 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:15.420 On the one hand, they were unalterably opposed to scabs. 86 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:20.740 But on the other hand, they were unalterably opposed to the racism of the United Federation 87 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:22.660 of Teachers. 88 00:07:22.660 --> 00:07:27.860 Clearly there was more heat than light in their attitudes. 89 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:32.020 Scabs obviously have been unjustly maligned. 90 00:07:32.020 --> 00:07:38.780 does not give the employee any proprietary privileges closed to workers who wish to compete 91 00:07:38.780 --> 00:07:45.780 for the same job. Scabbing and free competition are opposite sides of the same coin.