Where does the term "scab" originiate?

Question

Scab refers to a replacement worker during a strike. Where did it get that name?

Answer 1

Labor thugs beat up their replacements. The wounds would be covered in scabs, hence the term.

Organized labor has a history of violence, intimidation and even murder. It is shameful and outrageous. Organized labor is an embarrasing relic of the past; an anachronism. It has no place in modern society.

Answer 2

The term comes from the word scabbard. Scabbards were worn suspended from a sword belt or shoulder belt. Some shoulder belts held the scabbard diagonally across the back. Scabbards were used to cover swords and sabers. Centuries ago, soldiers carried swords and sabers through either slits in their belts or through elongated chain loops so that the sword or dagger was visible. It took years and years of agonizing pain and many deaths before organized militias and government officials realized that it is not cowardly to cover the sword while carrying out official duties, possibly due to the death of some important persons son. This tradition did not carry over to knights in armor as they were already protected. While many think the first scabbards were leather or wool, they were actually wooden. The wooden scabbards lasted longer than the blades, due to poor quality steel and the process of heat-treating would not come around for 1000 more years. When the swords or sabers broke, the only self-defense was the scabbard itself. Common street thugs borrowed the idea of using scabbards or wooden jackets for their knives and daggers, later transforming into billy-jacks and again later billy-clubs. To beat some-one with a scabbard was only a minor offense, it became a popular way to beat people up and take their money, or “Scab them.” Scabbing was still used during the early to mid 1900's when the prices of moving goods, especially fruits and vegetables, started to create a war between the larger trading companies. To raise prices of goods, the trading companies would put up roadblocks and use scare/terror tactics to stop smaller companies and even Mom & Pop farmers from getting their goods to market by pulling them out of their trucks and scabbing them. People who would take money to run the roadblocks and get the goods delivered were called scabs, because more often than not, they were beaten up and scabby by the time they reached the end of the road, if they reached it at all.
Yes a long-winded explanation, but that is the history of a scab. You will have to get the exact association with Unions and strikers from someone else.

Answer 3

Like a scab is a replacement for lost skin covering a wound....

Answer 4

Scab is an old-fashioned English insult.

Answer 5

"Meaning "strikebreaker" first recorded 1806, from earlier sense of "person who refuses to join a trade union" (1777), probably from meaning "despicable person" (1590), possibly borrowed in this sense from M.Du."

"scab" : http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=scab&searchmode=none