To the extent that people like this girl are undermining the union's bargaining position--they're making it less unpleasant for people to live in a Philly without trash pickup, and so lessening the pressure on the city to give in to the union's demands--they're "scabbing" in the sense that matters to the union. But like you, I don't see why this ought to resonate with third parties. Why should we as outsiders think that whatever the union's demands, the city ought to give in to them, and so any action that makes that less likely should be condemned?
I think it's a reflexively pro-labor stance that leads people to oppose "scabbing". And in my judgment, that's a really hard stance to justify when it comes to public sector unions, for all sorts of reasons that won't fit in a substack comment. Imagine a striking police department calling people who join ad hoc neighborhood watch patrols "scabs". Would condemning those "scabs" seem sensible? If not there, what's the difference when it comes to trash pickup?
It depends a lot on what exactly the union is demanding. Suppose the city was treating them terribly - unsafe working conditions, wage theft, harassment and abuse. Then, as a sympathetic observer, I might want to show support by not lessening their leverage. But if their demands are esoteric or puzzling, then I'll have less sympathy for making everyone else suffer to meet them. I think more people should be willing to base their opinions on any individual case of "scabbing" based on a case-by-case evaluation of what the strike is demanding.
I think the default assumption for public sector unions should be that they're in the wrong. Governments are really bad at using money efficiently, and public sector unions can pretty easily (and do) take advantage of that.
"[In a communist system] you’ll end up with lots of scabbing free-riders who do very little work, and plenty of overworked laborers being scabbed-upon."
In this example, you've actually got it wrong! The overworking laborers are definitionally still the scabs - they provide more work to the employer for the same wage. This is counterintuitive because like London says, scabbing is a morally loaded term so it's easy to assign the scab label to whoever in a situation is screwing the other over. But it's just a feature of Communism as a system that the advantages of scabbing are not just removed but entirely reversed. This is of course appealing to those who know nothing about economics.
This observation does enable an interesting way of defining capitalism and communism - capitalism is whatever maximizes the advantages of scabbing while communism is whatever maximizes the advantages of not-scabbing.
To the extent that people like this girl are undermining the union's bargaining position--they're making it less unpleasant for people to live in a Philly without trash pickup, and so lessening the pressure on the city to give in to the union's demands--they're "scabbing" in the sense that matters to the union. But like you, I don't see why this ought to resonate with third parties. Why should we as outsiders think that whatever the union's demands, the city ought to give in to them, and so any action that makes that less likely should be condemned?
I think it's a reflexively pro-labor stance that leads people to oppose "scabbing". And in my judgment, that's a really hard stance to justify when it comes to public sector unions, for all sorts of reasons that won't fit in a substack comment. Imagine a striking police department calling people who join ad hoc neighborhood watch patrols "scabs". Would condemning those "scabs" seem sensible? If not there, what's the difference when it comes to trash pickup?
It depends a lot on what exactly the union is demanding. Suppose the city was treating them terribly - unsafe working conditions, wage theft, harassment and abuse. Then, as a sympathetic observer, I might want to show support by not lessening their leverage. But if their demands are esoteric or puzzling, then I'll have less sympathy for making everyone else suffer to meet them. I think more people should be willing to base their opinions on any individual case of "scabbing" based on a case-by-case evaluation of what the strike is demanding.
I think the default assumption for public sector unions should be that they're in the wrong. Governments are really bad at using money efficiently, and public sector unions can pretty easily (and do) take advantage of that.
"[In a communist system] you’ll end up with lots of scabbing free-riders who do very little work, and plenty of overworked laborers being scabbed-upon."
In this example, you've actually got it wrong! The overworking laborers are definitionally still the scabs - they provide more work to the employer for the same wage. This is counterintuitive because like London says, scabbing is a morally loaded term so it's easy to assign the scab label to whoever in a situation is screwing the other over. But it's just a feature of Communism as a system that the advantages of scabbing are not just removed but entirely reversed. This is of course appealing to those who know nothing about economics.
This observation does enable an interesting way of defining capitalism and communism - capitalism is whatever maximizes the advantages of scabbing while communism is whatever maximizes the advantages of not-scabbing.