Nick G.
The hypocrisy of the ruling class knows no bounds. While Liberals champion the right to bigotry, a Federal Court judge has ruled that the WA Branch of the Maritime Union of Australia is in breach of the Fair Work Act because it had identified five scabs as scabs during a strike in 2011, and further, had defamed them and denied their human dignity by quoting the words of Jack London's famous statement, The Scab.
Scabs deny their own human dignity.
That is the whole point of London’s statement. A US Supreme
Court case in 1974, dealing with a similar case of the use of London’s
statement, ruled that "Jack London's... 'definition of a scab' is merely
rhetorical hyperbole, a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt felt
by union members towards those who refuse to join", and as such was not libellous
and was protected under the First Amendment.
Freedom of speech for
whom?
The US First Amendment is a bourgeois right that has never been
implemented in Australia. It protects the right to freedom of expression from
government interference.
It is not an absolute right. The US government can restrict it. Nevertheless, it has its use and is a
counter-balance to the restrictions imposed under definitions of defamation and
libel.
We don’t have a Bill of Rights and we don’t have a First
Amendment. Restrictions on freedom of
speech by working class activists and their allies are more easily applied here
as a result.
Thinking
reflects class membership
Every type of thinking without exception is stamped with the
brand of a class. There is working class thinking and there is ruling class
thinking. A scab does not think like a worker does. The worker thinks of unity and struggling
until victory. The scab thinks of
personal gain at the expense of others and doesn’t consider the consequences.
Scabs are just as likely to be fellow employees who are
too selfish to forgo pay for the sake of improved wages and conditions, but
always take the improvements that others have fought for. Sometimes they are
management personnel looking for brownie points from the boss by doing the work
of others down the food chain. Sometimes they are from outside the workplace and
are likely to be unemployed and in genuine hardship themselves.
They are still scabs.
(Above: Mock grave of a named scab during the Broken Hill lock-out of 1909)
The thinking of the ruling class is that it’s fine to use scabs alongside police violence and the courts in order to intimidate and break the spirit of striking workers. The workers think it is fine to call a spade a spade, to name and shame, and to intimidate and break the spirit of strike-breakers.
(Above: Police at broken Hill prepared to put strikers in real graves)
The Federal Court judge, using ruling class thinking, found
that the MUA poster was “extreme, offensive, cruel and abusive”. We think as
workers that scabbing during a strike is “extreme, offensive, cruel and
abusive”.
Our working class history is built on a righteous hatred of
scabs and scabbery.
We proudly reprint the Jack London statement in tribute to
the WA branch of the MUA.
The Scab
by Jack London,
(1876-1916)
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the
vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.
A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water
brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and
angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.
No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there is a
pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body
with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying
his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a
commission in the British Army.
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his
children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his
God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country.
A scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and
his class.
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)
NO SCABS!
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