scab-o-tage

Scab-o-tage is a phenomenon occurring during telecom labor strikes when the company employs the use of non-contract temporary workers ("scabs") who are usually incompetent and inadequately trained for their assigned work function. As a result these temps often create more troubles than they fix and disrupt service to irritated customers. Subsequently, the company declares that these outages are caused by the strikers' vandalism attempts which serves as a public relations and corporate psychological operation with the aim to negate sympathy for the strikers as well as hide the incompetence of their replacements.