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Title: The “Scab” Author: Lucy E. Parsons Date: August, 1892 Language: en Topics: class struggle, working class Source: Freedom Notes: Chicago
Scab is a new word, and like the individual it represents, it is the
result of, and is coined from, the conditions of today. We believe in
organization among the wealth-producers because it, for a time at least,
enables the wage-slave to withstand the encroachments of the
capitalists; it disciplines the raw material of the factory; and
besides, men and women who are too ignorant or indolent to organize in
the unions of their trades are too ignorant to be amenable to the
teachings of the science of economies. But the “scab” is here; he is a
factor, and is becoming a more important factor with each day’s momentum
of the capitalistic system.
Analyzed, who is the scab? A poverty-stricken, disheartened
wage-slave—no more, no less.
According to very conservative statistics there are constantly from a
million to a million and a half of wealth-producers out of employment.
What an army from which to manufacture the scab! And this army is ever
on the increase. Can the unionist hope to keep his wages at the present
maximum standard with this vast army of men and women who possess every
essential of life that he does? Whose daily needs are the same as his?
Then what is the unionist and the scab to do?
Stop fighting each other and say unanimously and unitedly the
wage-system has outgrown its usefulness, if it ever had any, and must
go. Trades Unionist and scab, this is the situation which confronts you
today. Will you accept it or will you reject it, and thus rivet tighter
the chains that bind you?