Word: scabbing
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Each character is distinct, but several of the male protagonists share characteristics and concerns, making much of the collection seem like loose variations on a theme. The young men try to farm the family land, are scab truck-drivers, sell whiskey at illegal cockflights of mine coal. Attached to the land, they feel trapped and in complete in their tedious, brutal jobs and empty relationships with family and women but a more satisfying life is out of reach. In "A Room Forever," a man who works on Ohio River tugboats begins to tire of life passed in hotel rooms...
...union workers hurled railroad spikes and ball bearings at state troopers and strikebreakers, stinging clouds of tear gas and chemical spray swirled into protesters' eyes. Earlier, enraged members of Local 222 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union had spread nails across the highway. Then, screaming "Scab! Scab!" they threw rocks and bricks at newly hired workers trying to enter the plant. Republican Governor Charles Thone was finally forced to summon 160 National Guardsmen to aid the 100 besieged state police. It was the first time that the Guard had been mobilized since an Omaha streetcar strike...
...union mined. The legendary John L. Lewis rose to the presidency of the U.M.W. as a legislative lobbyist from the union's Illinois District 12, which includes Galatia. Since the Iowa-born Lewis first arrived in 1908, the dirtiest four-letter word in coal country has been scab...
...Muddy Bottoms is an area along the Muddy River a few miles to the north of Herrin, where U.M.W. stalwarts loyal to John L. Lewis fought off supporters of a rival union with clubs, shovels and shotguns in the early 1930s. The miner adds: "Them that sets up scab here is gonna set up in blood and ashes...
...alternate gown is not the same quality as the other alternate gown offered earlier, Guy Molyneux '81, organizer of the protest, said, adding "It is still better than wearing a gown made by scab labor." Both alternate caps and gowns are made by companies whose workers are not on strike...