Am I a scab if I don't support a wildcat strike?

October 25, 2024 5:59 AM

I'm part of a union where a not insignificant amount of members are considering a wildcat strike. However, I actually ethically disagree with this wildcat strike and I think it will hurt our cause more than help it. Ethically, if I don't support it, would I be a scab?

It might not happen, who knows. I truly don't agree with having a wildcat strike at this moment. I've never been in this situation before and I feel so torn in all directions.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (25 answers total)

Solidarity, friend. I'm sorry you're in this situation.

I'm not a labor theorist, just a union member (treasurer of my local). A lot of the power of unions is, in fact, unity over division. Now, keeping unity from becoming tyranny is a whole dang thing -- my local is chafing about some of the built-up bureaucracy in the bylaws at the moment -- but a union that can't speak with a fairly unified voice is a union that can't get jack shit done.

I encourage you to bring your views forward as the strike is being discussed -- I'm guessing there is still time and opportunity to do so? That's good union democracy, that is, and a good union will hear you out and think about what you say. If you think there's a vocal minority railroading everyone else, call a vote. That, too, is good union democracy.

But if it comes down to it... I hope you'll stand with your union siblings.
posted by humbug at 6:10 AM on October 25 [25 favorites]

One idea: game it out in the sense of Pascal's wager. This is kind of trite nonsense in terms of theology imo, but nevertheless useful for decision making in terms of outcomes and how you feel about it.

Eg: if you join and they win ground: great! If you opt out and they fail: hmmm did your continuing work weaken their bargaining? If you bail but they win: how will they see you after? And if you join and lose: will you be glad that you were in it together? Will you regret not working those days?

This is just a sample, I encourage you to think through each case with your own morals/ethics/feelings. To me, it seems like opting out( if it happens) can only harm the union and cannot help it.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:21 AM on October 25 [5 favorites]

It’s a regrettable situation but I agree with Humbug. Disagreement in planning, but always solidarity in action.
posted by mhoye at 6:21 AM on October 25 [22 favorites]

Yes.
posted by james33 at 6:35 AM on October 25 [3 favorites]

The call to solidarity is surely undermined in the case of wildcat strikes, though, pretty much by definition. The Union to which and to whose members you owe the duty of solidarity has presumably decided against industrial action - it's the wildcat strikers who are, by definition, outside of the normal decision-making and structure of collective responsibility. You're arguable very specifically "standing with your Union siblings" by not joining a strike outside of and contrary to the Union's position.

The people on what will be an unofficial picket line might call you a scab but, if your Union takes a public stance on the issue of the wildcat strikes, it will be not to join them because they are unaffiliated with the Union.
posted by deeker at 6:37 AM on October 25 [12 favorites]

You have to strike if the union strikes, that's the whole point of the union. (I had a union job for 17 years and have been out on what was de facto a losing strike called unwisely - a later serious strike threat under better conditions won.)

I mean, it's definitely a drag - I was frustrated with some of the decisions my union made during about half my time in the union and felt that we were not really well advised by leadership.

If you were to have a serious enough ethical concern that you couldn't in good conscience strike (like your union was striking to exclude immigrant workers or remove benefits to queer people) I think you'd have to quit the union if it's not a closed shop, or I suppose you could in fact just go ahead and scab and take the consequences, but to me that would have to be a real apocalyptic "I think my union is a force for evil" concern.

My workplace was not a closed shop, so people who weren't union didn't strike. Some union people scabbed. The consequences to them were mixed - for some people that was it, you would always despise a scab, for others it was more about trust and friendship.

The consequences to the union are significant. What the scabbing taught the employer was that we were not unified or disciplined and could be pushed around. It really literally took eight or nine years before conditions were ripe for a serious strike threat where we could make gains.

Going on strike stupidly is bad, going on strike stupidly and having your own union crumble is much worse.

I hated being on strike. There were a few moments that were good, and it ended up not being too huge of a financial hardship because I'd just moved in with my partner, who had a good job, and our expenses were low at the time, but wow, any illusions I had about being a big strong union type would have been shattered except I already knew I was a shrinking violet. I put all my energy into just staying the course in the minimum way - I picketed every day but not all day, for instance, because I was just getting too stressed out.

Anyway! Stay strong, if revolutionary change were made easily and quickly by people who always made the right call we'd live in utopia by now.
posted by Frowner at 6:37 AM on October 25 [18 favorites]

Further: I think that if there's a wildcat strike you need to strike. When there's a wildcat strike and it goes completely to shit, that teaches management that the union is divided and weak. Don't kid yourself - even the softest most uwu nonprofit employer in a unionized business is in contact with union-buster consultants and constantly looking for ways to weaken or destroy the union. They would LOVE to get rid of your union, no matter what they say to your face, and they are constantly mulling ways to do it. Many years of being in a union, knowing union organizers and seeing friends at small nonprofits unionize (and also knowing someone in management at a small nonprofit during its unionization campaign who suddenly started spouting all these anti-union talking points!*) has taught me this. You've got to stand up for the union.

*I knew this person of old, and we were both big stroppy students together and talked about unions and workers' rights, and then when there was an actual union campaign in question all of the sudden the workplace was "like a family" and the union would just create distance, etc. I've known anarchists to take this position when they are friends with people in management.

~~
Now, if it turns out that most of the wildcat strikers are in Chicago and you work in Toledo, and there's one person who wants to do a wildcat strike at your location and no one else is feeling it , I think you have grounds to object and push back hard if you think it's really stupid. But if your location is substantially striking, you've got to strike.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on October 25 [11 favorites]

If you work during the strike, absolutely yes.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:51 AM on October 25 [4 favorites]

If it comes down to a disruption, I would be tempted to call in sick and wait it out.

One of my friends worked at a place where there was a labour dispute that they didn't personally support. In their case, they resigned and found another job.
posted by ovvl at 6:56 AM on October 25

Yes, of course. You stand in solidarity with your co-workers and to work during a strike (wildcat or a union-called strike you didn't vote for) is to scab.
posted by RajahKing at 7:03 AM on October 25 [4 favorites]

Just to be clear, because it sounds like perhaps some responders here are not seeing that this is a wildcat strike, or don't know what one is:

A wildcat strike is a strike action undertaken by unionised workers without union leadership's authorization, support, or approval; this is sometimes termed an unofficial industrial action.

(This is quoted from the wiki page on wildcat strikes.)

So this is a (potential) unofficial strike in which the union membership has not voted to go on strike. If the membership votes to strike and you don't go out, then yes, you're a scab. But this is quite a different situation.

You don't say whether there was a strike vote that failed, or if this is coming up outside of the context of bargaining, or what. I'm afraid there aren't any hard and fast answers here; it really depends on the situation.

For example, my wife works for a union where workers at one location (out of about ten, all in the same local) went on a wildcat strike, and the problem was that the wildcat strikers felt that the issue they were striking about (cost of living adjustments) affected them more than all the other locations and that they deserved extra compensation. This wasn't really true; COLA was a big issue for everybody, and those people alienated a lot of their brothers and sisters in the union by going on a wildcat strike and putting their own interests above those of the entire union. They could have done the hard work and tried to persuade everybody to go out at once (and tried to win benefits for everyone instead of just for themselves), but they didn't, they were just acting on their own. That's against the principle of solidarity, in my opinion, and I would not have supported that either if I had been working there.

People are talking about solidarity here, but remember, if there was a failed strike vote, it is the wildcat strikers who are going against the majority view and hurting solidarity. People here are right that a strike that doesn't have majority support will be a sign of weakness to management, and wildcat strikers should consider that when they decide to walk off the job outside the framework of the CBA.

If the situation is instead that the union leadership is not in tune with what the members want or need, or if this is a situation in which the CBA prevents you from going on strike but there is some egregious action by the management that requires a response, then the considerations might be different. But you said that you don't agree with the reasoning, so it sounds like this might not be the case.

I'm sorry you're going through this, it sounds really hard. The only solution is probably more dialogue -- do you know anybody else who feels similarly to you? If you can get a group of people together to oppose the wildcat strike, you may get more traction than if you oppose it on your own.
posted by number9dream at 7:07 AM on October 25 [20 favorites]

I don't think people in this thread know what a wildcat strike is. No, you would not be a scab. Division in your union helps no one though, so consider how you can help your union get everyone aligned.
posted by Toddles at 7:20 AM on October 25 [8 favorites]

I know what a wildcat strike is and wrote my comment specifically with that in mind. And now let's take a look at the definitions provided in those helpful Wikipedia links. "A wildcat strike is a strike action", and "A strikebreaker (sometimes pejoratively called a scab, blackleg, bootlicker, blackguard or knobstick) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike." So this would make OP a scab if the strike happens and they continue to work, per the sources provided. Thanks!
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:57 AM on October 25 [3 favorites]

It really depends on the context of the wildcat strike. Is it 10 out of 1000 employees refusing to work because they disagree with some policy that you and the union executive generally think is reasonable? That's an entirely different calculus than if the majority of the membership has decided to defy the bargaining committee or union executive.

My inclination would be to go with what a) the union executive ask me to do, and b) with what the majority of union members are doing. If (a) and (b) are not the same thing, I would go with what the majority of union members are doing. The members are the union.
posted by hepta at 8:08 AM on October 25 [11 favorites]

The answer to a sclerotic, compromised or politically timid union is to reform that union so that it becomes more effective, not to undermine this union specifically and labour unions more generally through usurping their politically valid claim to solidarity.

If you can't get your own house in order, so that the union represents the members sufficiently that frustrated union members dont wildcat strike when they don't get their way, why should management engage with that union, or unions, at all? The union ceases to represent their members in a key area: the withdrawal of labour.
posted by deeker at 8:41 AM on October 25 [2 favorites]

I do not think union membership removes your right to make your own moral judgments. But those judgments need to include (and weigh very heavily) the commitments you’ve made by joining the union. So: how strong are the ethical objections? Is this a serious health and safety issue, for example, where you are concerned that the proposed strike might harm the population you serve? Or do you primarily have strategic concerns?
posted by moosetracks at 9:56 AM on October 25

I was a member of a big union that represented a very diverse collections of workers. There were lots of constraints, some legal, that limited going straight to a strike. That lead some units to consider a wildcat strike as an option. This wasn't a new fissure, and some of the units had actually went with a different union. It was feisty.

It was a whole process and there was several votes - by the final round I was supporting the strikers. It is my belief that anyone who intends to strike is putting their job on the line, and at a minimum is willing to massively disrupt their finances. And these units, my coworkers, were willing to put their jobs on the line. A wildcat strike is the strongest possible way to state that the situation is intolerable.

My position in IT meant that I felt like I was removed from much of the issues - and I was wrong. It was a bad situation, and when covid hit it got much worse. Five people died. It isn't some murder mystery- maybe covid would have got them anyway. But at a different hospital facility across the way none of these sort of staff died in that timeframe.

When the actual strike vote finally came it got over 90% support. After a few weeks we won. Solidarity forever.
posted by zenon at 10:06 AM on October 25 [6 favorites]

I am a local president, and our local is affiliated with an AFL-CIO international union. Not supporting a wildcat strike would make me a scab regardless of my personal ethical feelings about it. I am in solidarity with my coworkers and other workers who are doing the work, and if they are putting it on the line about their job conditions, being in the union with them is what a union means -the national/international union level of leadership does not get to supplant that by trying to be another boss saying no. If a substantial number of people are able to do the big amount of work to organize a strike action, and do it while understanding the implications to their livelihoods, I can try to explain my point of view and vote against it. But when the rubber hits the road and the strike happens, not supporting it is being a scab. Wildcat strikes achieve a lot, and can quickly accomplish changing bargaining impasses - suddenly things are on the table that were totally not an option before, or the health/safety issue is fixed where before it wasn't an option, and workers are getting more of what they need from Management and their national/int'l staff.
posted by lizard music at 12:04 PM on October 25 [5 favorites]

Honestly fascinated by this. For those saying one is obliged to participate in a wildcat strike--is there a line where you feel it no longer "counts" as a strike? If the majority of the bargaining unit votes against, but a minority wildcats, are you obligated? What if the percent of strikers is very low? Just one guy?

What if no authorization vote is held at all, but the rest of your shop strikes?

For those saying you are not obligated--same question. Are there situations where you are? If the bargaining unit votes no, but your entire shop voted yes? If the union votes yes but the leadership doesn't call the strike?

I apologize if this is chat-filter, but given that the anonymous OP may not be able to clarify their position, I am hopeful that some hypotheticals could help them.
posted by agentofselection at 7:21 PM on October 25 [1 favorite]

Indeed. There's a happily convenient ending to one story above: "It was a whole process and there was several votes - by the final round I was supporting the strikers... When the actual strike vote finally came it got over 90% support. After a few weeks we won. Solidarity forever." But what if the vote had been 90% against. Isn't solidarity then not wildcat striking?

There may be confounding specifics but the principle is at least easy for me to articulate. If the Union's decision-making process leads to industrial action, one is obliged to join the strike. If you don't like the decision-making process or implementation, work within the Union to change that or quit. Don't lose the vote, withdraw your labour anyway and try to pressure those following the Union's decision to join you in fraternal solidarity.

Just as the authority of the state rests on the monopoly of legitimate force, the authority of the Union to represent its members rests on the monopoly of the power formally to withdraw labour.

It's not just in this strike that the Union's authority is weakened (after all, with whom are management now negotiating but the wildcat strikers?) but always and forever (because the threat to withdraw or promise not to withdraw labour is revealed as hollow).

Certain strands of anarchism would say, "never cross a picket line, even a wildcat line" but serious labour organisations require some sense of presumed authority, fealty and, yes, solidarity in order to function. Not "solidarity unless things go my way" but meaningful solidarity which sometimes entails sacrificing personal feelings for the good of the collective.
posted by deeker at 12:38 AM on October 26 [1 favorite]

A strike without union agreement in a unionised workplace is risky and undermines the union. I do not think you have to strike and agree with those who say that a wildcat strike is anti-solidarity, unless it is only a wildcat strike on a legal technicality. As you can see, some people will consider you a scab regardless.

In your position I would weigh up the risks of striking and not striking so I made a decision with a good understanding of the consequences. Then I would either take the less risky option or the option I considered to be morally correct, and live with it.
posted by plonkee at 2:23 AM on October 26

Wildcat strikes are not to be narrowly defined

I am personally aware of wildcat strikes that were not only perfectly justified (at the time, and moreso in hindsight), but were expedient to union leadership for the complexities of calling a strike at the time

W/o additional info from the poster of the question, the responses here judging wildcat strikes as illegitimate or a priori questionable fly in the face of all kinds of examples. Not to say all wildcat strikes are well considered or desirable
posted by ginger.beef at 10:26 AM on October 27

I don’t think people in this thread realize the circumstances in which wildcat strikes tend to happen.

The most common cause of wildcat strikes is not “the bargaining unit voted against striking” but rather strikes that are forbidden by contract or forbidden by higher union leadership, but endorsed by the local or by the shop. It is not a situation where “just some workers decide to strike against the will of the workers. Union leadership doesn’t always like strikes, especially against contract, because they can be hit for unfair labor practices unless the strikers are very careful about how they do their strike, and because the company can sue them for economic impact of the strike.

So union leadership is often weighing, “Are the dues that shop brings in worth the legal fees they will cause us if they go out on strike?” And other such considerations, none of which matters to the workers who go out on strike.

That said; the time to object to the wildcat strike is before it is called. Once it is called, if you go to work or otherwise cross the picket line, yes, you are a scab.
posted by corb at 1:56 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]

Like many here, I think "do *I* think you'd be a scab?" depends on context a little, but your colleagues who choose to strike will likely consider you a scab. "Scab" is a label, and a lot of times people act like it's simple to decide who gets and doesn't get that label, but I do think there are gray areas. (Like, there's someone else on MeFi who, I gather, thinks I am a scab because I work on open source software that we give away for free, which undercuts other software developers' wages.)

Some of the conversation in this thread has been about the underlying legitimacy of wildcat strikes. I'm partway through reading Strike! (2014) by Jeremy Brecher, and it's historically been common for union leadership and membership to disagree on whether to strike, and whether to continue a strike. Sometimes this indicates that the leadership has gotten out of touch with the concerns of the membership, and an unauthorized/wildcat strike is part of how a new successor union starts. (One dynamic that I learned: strikes make unions as much as unions make strikes.) Sometimes leadership has strategic reasons for not authorizing a strike; sometimes it's corrupt or cowardly.

Whether to end the [1919] strike became the key issue. According to Anna Louise Strong, "As soon as any worker was made a leader he wanted to end that strike. A score of times in those five days I saw it happen. Workers in the ranks felt the thrill of massed power which they trusted their leaders to carry to victory. But as soon as one of those workers was put on a responsible committee, he also wished to stop 'before there is riot and blood.'"
(p. 112, in "Nineteen Nineteen")

I hope you are able to come to agreement with your coworkers and collectively bargain together. It sounds like you may end up choosing to be a scab, because, in your estimation, there is something else that's worse to be, and you'd prefer to be a scab instead. My sympathies; this sounds very tough.
posted by brainwane at 10:09 AM on October 29

I say what I do because you mentioned "I actually ethically disagree with this wildcat strike and I think it will hurt our cause more than help it." Like several others in this thread, I think the nature of your ethical concerns is pretty key. I agree with this articulation by Frowner:

If you were to have a serious enough ethical concern that you couldn't in good conscience strike (like your union was striking to exclude immigrant workers or remove benefits to queer people) I think you'd have to quit the union if it's not a closed shop, or I suppose you could in fact just go ahead and scab and take the consequences, but to me that would have to be a real apocalyptic "I think my union is a force for evil" concern.

posted by brainwane at 10:16 AM on October 29