What are the "rules" about this? I often see people arguing against scab labor with real fervor, but how is this defined? And who decides where to draw the line?
e.g. continuing with the cafeteria example, if people decide to go off campus and purchase food at a different establishment, are those food workers then considered scabs? Or is it only scab labor if it's hired as a temp replacement by the company against whom the workers are on strike.
And back to the original example, what happens a person needs to get to the airport, or to work? The challenge with substitute goods and services (e.g. Uber or gypsy cabs or other app-based car services, in place of licensed cabs) is that a monopoly gets marginalized and a strike is less effective. But what's a person supposed to do who needs to be transported from A to B? Not call Uber?
It is a simple definition, a scab is a person who accepts work that undermines the union. This can be refusing to join the union, accepting less pay or crossing the picket line and working.
So a restaurant worker not refusing to feed a student off campus would not undermine the shutdown of the on campus cafeteria. But any attempt to recreate the cafeteria by the school, on or off campus, would.
You should do the best you can to do nothing that could undermine the strike. A key is who do you complain about and complain to. If public transit workers are on strike, which makes your commute worse, do you blame the workers or complain to the management.
Not if your service is different - the Uber driver isn't a taxi driver, he's a private car driver. It's like saying people going to work at a gas plant are scabbing when coal miners are striking.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm getting at with my line of questioning.
If a person works in an industry that creates a substitute for the products or services of a unionized industry, is he or she a scab worker? Obviously, when the company hires temp replacements, that's very direct. But if a new industry makes an old industry irrelevant, using that kind of critical language seems like an unfair attack on the workers in the new industry.
Yes, he's in the same business, but radio cabs are a competing arm compared to licensed taxis.