Over its long history, the American labor movement has displayed a remarkably rich vocabulary for shaming those deemed traitors to its cause.
Some insults, such as “blackleg,” are largely forgotten today. Others, such as “stool pigeon,” now sound more like the dated banter of film noir. A few terms still offer interesting windows into the past: “Fink,” for example, was used to disparage workers who informed for management; it seems to have been derived from “Pinkerton,” the private detective agency notorious for strikebreaking during mass actions like the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
No word, however, has burned American workers more consistently, or more wickedly, than “scab.”
Any labor action today will inevitably lead to someone getting called a scab, an insult used to smear people who cross picket lines, break up strikes or refuse to join a union. No one is beyond the reach of this accusation: United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called former president Donald Trump a “scab” in August 2024, after Trump suggested to Elon Musk that striking workers at one of Musk’s companies ought to be illegally fired.
While working on my book “Sellouts! The Story of an American Insult,” I discovered that labor’s scabs were among the first Americans identified as sellouts for betraying their own.
Reinforcing class solidarity
The use of scab as an insult actually dates to Medieval Europe. Back then, scabbed or diseased skin was widely seen as the sign of a corrupt or immoral character. So, English writers started using “scab” as slang for a scoundrel.
In the 19th century, American workers started using the word to attack peers who refused to join a union or worked when others were striking. By the 1880s, periodicals, union pamphlets and books all regularly used the epithet to chastise any workers or labor leaders who cooperated with bosses. Names of scabs were often printed in local papers.
Scab likely caught on because it directed visceral disgust at anyone who put self-interest above class solidarity.
Over its long history, the American labor movement has displayed a remarkably rich vocabulary for shaming those deemed traitors to its cause.
Some insults, such as “blackleg,” are largely forgotten today. Others, such as “stool pigeon,” now sound more like the dated banter of film noir. A few terms still offer interesting windows into the past: “Fink,” for example, was used to disparage workers who informed for management; it seems to have been derived from “Pinkerton,” the private detective agency notorious for strikebreaking during mass actions like the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
No word, however, has burned American workers more consistently, or more wickedly, than “scab.”
Any labor action today will inevitably lead to someone getting called a scab, an insult used to smear people who cross picket lines, break up strikes or refuse to join a union. No one is beyond the reach of this accusation: United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called former president Donald Trump a “scab” in August 2024, after Trump suggested to Elon Musk that striking workers at one of Musk’s companies ought to be illegally fired.
Oil prices, which were little changed in early Asian trade on Friday, were on track to end higher for a second straight week following a large cut in U.S. interest rates and
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates by half of a percentage point was "a political move."
Huawei and Apple’s latest smartphones go on sale in China on Friday, with the Chinese tech company’s much-anticipated $2,800 tri-foldable phone offered at
Macy's said on Thursday it will hire more than 31,500 full and part-time employees for the upcoming holiday season - fewer than last year - as the U.S. department store gears up for a busy