New Scab?

[TheRaven]

So the options are

1. He could stay sitting on the couch bored out of his skull and get the ********************iest flying left,

or

2. Work the system by hounding scheduling to keep him flying, thus reducing the likelihood of more senior guys getting called.


I think I too would take #2. Out of curiosity, do you call and try to get flying or are you content to wait for the phone to ring. I haven't sat reserve in a while, but I would be the first person trying to turn a quick turn into as many days as humanly possible to reduce my reserve liability. Sounds like you are just mad that this guy works the system better than you.

 

[unreal]

I don't fly for an airline, but I can relate. My last job was serving tables (*shudder*) in the LA area, which out there is actually a pretty high paying job. There were actual "senior" shifts that people would hold week after week that paid the most. Of course when I was new, I got scheduled for very slow days and made very crappy money.

So, I got off my ass and started picking up a lot of those senior shifts when I could. Did people take offense to that? Maybe, but it's not their business. I wasn't doing anything against the rules or anything unethical, and I was making good money. I wouldn't call that being a d*uchebag, scab, or anything else. I'd call it being proactive and working smarter, not harder.

 

[rjacobs]

Isnt reserve generally given out from the bottom up so if you are senior on reserve you dont have to work as much? Unless your contract has provisions for how stuff is assigned, who cares. We have stuff at XJT that makes sure more senior people are called first, if they want to be. If you want to fly more, call scheduling and ask for trips. Open time will get assigned to a reserve pilot anyway so why not call and ask to get it assigned to you as a reserve assignment anyway.

 

[CoolSidePillow]

Anyone who is working at a company and tries to fly as muc has he can is just working hard and trying to make a little extra. There is nothing wrong with that. Now the word SCAB has been misused as the definition is that of someone who willingly takes a job that is currently vacant because of a union labor strike. If you cross a picket line either as a union worker who doesnt support the strike or a off the street worker who took an easy open job. That of course reduces the strength of said strike and renders the union itself weaker. Union of course means to be together. It was what got the USA out of third world working conditions in the early part of the century. Big business and government wont give an inch unless it is ripped out of their greedy teeth. The government started cracking down on union corruption I am sure big money business also lobbied bought and paid for politicians to help weaken unions. Union places have always been a high cost overhead for any company and management never wanted them. Higher wages and better benefits and work rules means less profit for the high end management to put in their pocket. Why would they want to actually reward those who do the majority of the work. Over the last 20 years unions have had much of their power stripped away. There was a time when if one union voted for a strike then supporting unions that were affiliated would strike as well. That would bring management to the table very quickly. The workers had a lot of power and some labor fields life was very good in pay, benefits, and work rules. Airline, trucking, the construction trades, etc. Now with the airlines financially crippled and so much of american industry shipped overseas the unions are a mere shadow of themselves which is evident in how companies and work around them. So perhaps SCAB is a term that can have a diversified meaning.
The pilots at GoatJets for example didnt cross a picket line but since they willingly and knowingly took jobs that existed from a company working around a union labor group then that very closely resembles crossing a picket line. The fact is people choose the airline industry to work in.... it doesnt choose them. If you entered the industry after 9/11 then the industry didnt sandbag you like it did for those who were already working. The greatest threat to any unified people is selfish acts. Whether people think they are entitled or just dont care about others doesnt matter. You might get some now for yourself but the long term damage that kind of mentality and practice does will come back around. The world is not a vacuum. Enron, Worldcom, TYCO, etc. Those individuals didnt care about the big picture and look how many people were hurt. Start multiplying those actions by 10, 100, a million. How much can the system take? The USA has peaked as a place to live and now it is on a downslide and the only thing that can reverse it is the people that live within the borders to take control, responsiblity, and accountability for their actions and take the right path especially when it is the hardest. This country lives so far beyond its means in all respects. Government, corporate, and individual debt and overspending is epidemic. Living on false wealth and credit. So it might be a small thing to accept what looks like harmless acts such as taking a job at certain companies to start flying a jet because it looks so cool on Microsoft FS even though you have just enough hours to be dangerous to yourself and everyone around you but the majors wont hire everyone. Why should they? There are those out there who will gladly do the flying for less.

 

[The_Russian]

When will you guys stop this shat?

You are a scab, I am a scab. Who cares. If there was massive movement in the industry you wouldn't have time to think twice. Now all you have is time to sit around and think about how you imagine people could be screwing you.

Get a freakin life.

Everybody wants to bitch and point fingers at others. However, no one wants to look at their career. Do you think that you possibly could have caused undue career stress to another pilot? Yes, you did. Everyone did.

 

[Gr82Aviate]

When will you guys stop this shat?

You are a scab, I am a scab. Who cares. If there was massive movement in the industry you wouldn't have time to think twice. Now all you have is time to sit around and think about how you imagine people could be screwing you.

Get a freakin life.

Everybody wants to bitch and point fingers at others. However, no one wants to look at their career. Do you think that you possibly could have caused undue career stress to another pilot? Yes, you did. Everyone did.

NOT everyone!!!

 

[vectorvictor]

OK so what about this situation. What if a Junior Reserve pilot is somehow getting flying through scheduling out of seniority? Such as instead of sitting Ready Reserve he takes a trip from the senior reserve pilot on the shift so the senior pilot ends up Sitting ready in his place.

Would you call this a Scab, a Whore or just general ****************************** Bag?

These are the kind of losers that don't believe in paying dues and would gladly sign up for Blow Jets, Freedum A, or alter ego adventures as long as they get to be first in line when they are 6 monts on the job.

Maybe he or she just didn't feel like sitting reserve. When I'm on reserve I don't want to get called so as far as I'm concerned this person is doing me a favor. I know the call to hot reserve sucks but I would take the chance that this person gets to fly and leaves me home to accomplish what I had planned. Not a SCAB whore or **********bag. Probably a commuter trying to survive like the rest of us.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

THE SCAB

BY JACK LONDON
A speech first given before the
Oakland Socialist Party Local
April 5, 1903​

In a competitive society, where men struggle with one another for food and shelter, what is more natural than that of generosity, when it diminishes the food and shelter of men other than he who is generous, should be held an accursed thing? Wise old saws to the contrary, he who takes from a man's purse takes from his existence. To strike at a man's food and shelter is to strike at his life, and in a society organized on a tooth-and-nail basis, such an act, performed though it may be under the guise of generosity, is none the less menacing and terrible.
It is for this reason that a laborer is so fiercely hostile to another laborer who offers to work for less pay or longer hours. To hold his place (which is to live), he must offset this offer by another equally liberal, which is equivalent to giving away somewhat from the food and shelter he enjoys. To sell his day's work for two dollars instead of two dollars and a half means that he, his wife, and his children will not have so good a roof over their heads, such warm clothes on their backs, such substantial food in their stomachs. Meat will be bought less frequently, and it will be tougher and less nutritious; stout new shoes will go less often on the children's feed; and disease and death will be more imminent in a cheaper house and neighborhood.
Thus, the generous laborer, giving more of a day's work for less return (measured in terms of food and shelter), threatens the life of his less generous brother laborer, and, at the best, if he does not destroy that life, he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks upon him as an enemy, and, as men are inclined to do in a tooth-and-nail society, he tries to kill the man who is trying to kill him.
When a striker kills with a brick the man who has taken his place, he has no sense of wrong-doing. In the deepest holds of his being, though he does not reason the impulse, he has an ethical sanction. He feels dimly that he has justification, just as the home-defending Boer felt, though more sharply, with each bullet he fired at the invading English. Behind every brick thrown by a striker is the selfish "will to live" of himself and the slightly altruistic will to live of his family. The family-group came into the world before the state-group, and society being still on the primitive basis of tooth and nail, the will to live of the state is not so compelling to the striker as the will to live of his family and himself.
In addition to the use of bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish laborer finds it necessary to express his feelings in speech. Just as the peaceful country-dweller calls the sea-rover a "pirate," and the stout burgher calls the man who breaks into his strong-box a "robber," so the selfish laborer applies the opprobrious epithet "scab" to the laborer who takes from him food and shelter by being more generous in the disposal of his labor-power. The sentimental connotation of scab is as terrific as that of "traitor" or "Judas," and a sentimental definition would be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far easier to arrive at what may be called a technical definition, worded in commercial terms, as, for instance, that a scab is one who gives more value for the same price than another.
The laborer who gives more time, or strength, or skill, for the same wage, than another, or equal time, or strength, or skill, for a less wage, is a scab. This generousness on his part is hurtful to his fellow laborers, for it compels them to an equal generousness which is not to their liking, and which gives them less of food and shelter. But a word may be said for the scab. Just as his act makes his rivals compulsorily generous, so do they, by fortune of birth and training, make compulsory his act of generousness. He does not scab because he wants to scab. No whim of the spirit, no burgeoning of the heart, leads him to give more of his labor-power than they for a certain sum.
It is because he cannot get work on the same terms as they that he is a scab. There is less work than there are men to do work. This is patent, else the scab would not loom so large on the labor-market horizon. Because they are stronger than he, or more skilled, or more fortunate, or more energetic, it is impossible for him to take their places at the same wage. To take their places he must give more value, must work longer hours, or receive a smaller wage. He does so, and he cannot help it, for his will to live is driving him on as well as they are being driven on by theirs, and to live he must win food and shelter, which he can do only by receiving permission to work from some man who owns a bit of land or piece of machinery. And to receive permission from this man, he must make the transaction profitable for him.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Viewed in this light, the scab who gives more labor-power for a certain price than his fellows is not so generous after all. He is no more generous with his energy than the chattel slave and the convict laborer, who, by the way, are the almost perfect scabs. They give their labor-power for about the minimum possible price. But, within limits, they may loaf and malinger, and, as scabs, are exceeded by the machine, which never loafs or malingers, and which is the ideally perfect scab.
It is not nice to be a scab. Not only is it not in good social taste and comradeship, but, from the standpoint of food and shelter, it is bad business policy. Nobody desires to scab, to give most for least. The ambition of every individual is quite the opposite,—to give least for most; and as a result, living in a tooth-and-nail society, battle royal is waged by the ambitious individuals. But in its most salient aspect, that of the struggle over the division of a joint-product, it is no longer a battle between individuals, but between groups of individuals. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material, make something useful out of it, add to its value, and then proceed to quarrel over the division of the added value. Neither cares to give most for least. Each is intent on giving less than the other and on receiving more.
Labor combines into its unions; capital into partnerships, associations, corporations, and trusts. A group-struggle is the result, in which the individuals, as individuals, play no part. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master Builders' Association that it demands an increase of the wage of its members from $3.50 a day to $4.00, and a Saturday half-holiday without pay. This means that the carpenters are trying to give less for more. Where they received $21.00 for six full days, they are endeavoring to get $22.00 for five days and a half, — that is, they will work half a day less each week and receive a dollar more.
Also, they expect the Saturday half-holiday to give work to one additional man for each eleven previously employed. This last affords a splendid example of the development of the group idea. In this particular struggle the individual has no chance at all for life. The individual carpenter would be crushed like a mote by the Master Builders' Association, and like a mote the individual master builder would be crushed by the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
In the group-struggle over the division of the joint-product, labor utilizes the union with its two great weapons, — the strike and boycott; while capital utilizes the trust and association, the weapons of which are the blacklist, the lockout, and the scab. The scab is by far the most formidable of the three. He is the man who breaks strikes and causes all the trouble. Without him there would be no trouble, for the strikers are willing to remain out peacefully and indefinitely so long as other men are not in their places, and so long as the particular aggregation of capital with which they are fighting is eating its head off in enforced idleness.
But both warring groups have reserve weapons up their sleeves. Were it not for the scab, these weapons would not be brought into play. But the scab takes the places of the strikers, who begin at once to wield a most powerful weapon, — terrorism. The will to live of the scab recoils from the menace of broken bones and violent death. With all due respect to the labor leaders, who are not to be blamed for volubly asseverating otherwise, terrorism is a well-defined and eminently successful policy of the labor unions. It has probably won them more strikes than all the rest of the weapons in their arsenal. This terrorism, however, must be clearly understood. It is directed solely against the scab, placing him in such fear for life and limb as to drive him out of the contest. But when terrorism gets out of hand and inoffensive non-combatants are injured, law and order threatened, and property destroyed, it becomes and edged tool that cuts both ways. This sort of terrorism is sincerely deplored by the labor leaders, for it has probably lost them as many strikes as have been lost by any other single cause.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The scab is powerless under terrorism. As a rule he is not so good or gritty a man as the men he is displacing, and he lacks their fighting organization. He stands in dire need of stiffening and backing. His employers, the capitalists, draw their two remaining weapons, the ownership of which is debatable, but which they for the time being happen to control. These two weapons may be called the political and judicial machinery of society. When the scab crumples up and is ready to go down before the fists, bricks, and bullets of the labor-group, the capitalist-group puts the police and soldiers into the field, and begins a general bombardment of injunctions. Victory usually follows, for the labor-group cannot withstand the combined assault of gatling guns and injunctions.
But it has been noted that the ownership of the political and judicial machinery of society is debatable. In the Titanic struggle over the division of the joint-product, each group reaches out for every available weapon. Nor are they blinded by the smoke of conflict. They fight their battles as coolly and collectedly as ever battles were fought on paper. The capitalist-group has long since realized the immense importance of controlling the political and judicial machinery of society. Taught by gatlings and injunctions, which have smashed many an otherwise successful strike, the labor-group is beginning to realize that it all depends who is behind and who is before those weapons. And he who knows the labor-movement knows that there is slowly growing up and being formulated a clear, definite policy for the capture of the political and judicial machinery.
This is the terrible spectre which Mr. John Graham Brooks sees looming portentously over the twentieth-century world. No man may boast a more intimate knowledge of the labor-movement than he, and he reiterates again and again the dangerous likelihood of the whole labor-group capturing the political machinery of society. As he says in his recent book: [1]
1 The Social Unrest. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1903
"It is not probable that employers can destroy unionism in the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made, if we mean by unionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact of vigorous and determined organizations. If capital should prove too strong in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employers have only to convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own against the capitalist manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the union will turn to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy with increase city and state functions which trade unions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force bent upon using every weapon of taxation against the rich."
This struggle not to be a scab, to avoid giving more for less, and to succeed in giving less for more, is more vital than it would appear on the surface. The capitalist and labor groups are locked together in desperate battle, and neither side is swayed by moral considerations more than skin-deep. The labor-group hires business agents, lawyers, and organizers; and is beginning to intimidate legislators by the strength of its solid vote, and more directly, in the near future, it will attempt to control legislation by capturing it bodily through the ballot-box. On the other hand, the capitalist-group, numerically weaker, hires newspapers, universities, and legislatures, and strives to bend to its need all the forces which go to mould public opinion.
The only honest morality displayed by either side is white-hot indignation at the iniquities of the other side. The striking teamster complacently takes a scab driver into an alley and with an iron bar breaks his arms to that he can drive no more, but cries out to high heaven for justice when the capitalist breaks his skull by means of a cub in the hands of a policeman. Nay, the members of a union will declaim in impassioned rhetoric for the God-given right of an eight-hour day, and at the time be working their own business against seventeen hours out of the twenty-four.
A capitalist, such as the late Collis P. Huntington, and his name is Legion, after a long life spent in buying the aid of countless legislatures, will wax virtuously wrathful and condemn in unmeasured terms "the dangerous tendency of crying out to the government for aid" in the way of labor legislation. Without a quiver, a member of the capitalist-group will run tens of thousands of pitiful child-laborers through his life-destroying cotton factories, and weep maudlin and Constitutional tears over one scab hit in the back with a brick. He will drive a "compulsory" free contract with an unorganized laborer on the basis of a starvation wage, saying, "Take it or leave it," knowing that to leave it means to die of hunger; and in the next breath, when the organizer entices that laborer into a union, will storm patriotically about the inalienable rights of all men to work. In short, the chief moral concern of either side is with the morals of the other side. They are not in the business for their moral welfare, but to achieve the enviable position of the non-scab who gets more than he gives.
But there is more to the question than has yet been discussed. The labor scab is no more detestable to his brother laborers than is the capitalist scab to his brother capitalists. A capitalist may get most for least in dealing with his laborers, and in so far be a non-scab; but at the same time, in his dealings with his fellow capitalists, he may give most for least and be the very worst kind of scab. The most heinous crime an employer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellow employers of labor. Just as the individual laborers have organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scab laborer, so have the employers organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scab employer. The employers' federations, associations, and trusts are nothing more or less than unions. They are organized to destroy scabbing amongst themselves and to encourage scabbing amongst others. For this reason they pool interests, determine prices, and present an unbroken and aggressive front to the labor-group.
As has been said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous rôle of a scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of it. And it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were not more capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enough factories in existence to supply, with occasional stoppages, a certain commodity, the building of new factories, by a rival concern, for the production of that commodity, is plain advertisement that that capital is out of a job. The first act of this new aggregation of capital will be to cut prices, to give more for less; in short, to scab, to strike at the very existence of the less generous aggregation of capital, the work of which it is trying to do.
No scab capitalist strives to give more for less for any other reason than that he hopes, by undercutting a competitor and driving that competitor out of the market, to get that market and its profits for himself. His ambition is to achieve the day when he shall stand alone in the field both as buyer and seller, when he will be the royal non-scab, buying most for least, selling least for most, and reducing all about him, the small buyers and sellers (the consumers and the laborers), to a general condition of scabdom. This, for example, has been the history of Mr. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. Through all the sordid economies of scabdom he has passed until to-day he is a most regal non-scab. However, to continue in this enviable position, he must be prepared at a moment's notice to go scabbing again. And he is prepared. Whenever a competitor arises, Mr. Rockefeller changes about from giving least for most, and gives most for least with such a vengeance as to drive the competitor out of existence.
The banded capitalists discriminate against a scab capitalist by refusing him trade advantages, and by combining against him in most relentless fashion. The banded laborers, discriminating against a scab laborer in more primitive fashion, with a club, are no more merciless than the banded capitalists.
Mr. Casson tells of a New York capitalist, who withdrew from the Sugar Union several years ago and became a scab. He was worth something like twenty millions of dollars. But the Sugar Union, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Railroad Union and several others, beat him to his knees till he cried enough. So frightfully did they beat him that he was obliged to turn over to his creditors his home, his chickens, and his gold watch. In point of fact, he was as thoroughly bludgeoned by the Federation of Capitalist Unions as ever scab workman was bludgeoned by a labor union. The intent in either case is the same, to destroy the scab's producing power. The labor scab with concussion of the brain is put out of business, and so is the capitalist scab who has lost all his dollars down to his chickens and his watch.