Sabotage

From New World Encyclopedia


Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction. Sabotage can occur in various locations and situations including the workplace, wartime, or political campaigns.

Sabotage is also used in reference to ruining one's own chances for success.

Origin

The name derives from early in the Industrial Revolution. It is often said that powered looms could be damaged by angry or disgruntled workers throwing their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots) into the machinery, effectively clogging the machinery.[1] This is often referenced as one of the first inklings of the Luddite Movement. However, this etymology is highly suspect and no wooden shoe sabotage is known to have been reported from the time of the word's origin.

Another suggested etymology is that the word stems from the French verb "saboter," which means to make a loud clattering noise with the aforementioned wooden shoes.[2]

Types of Sabotage

Sabotage in war

In war, the word is used to describe the activity of an individual or group not associated with the military of the parties at war (such as a foreign agent or an indigenous supporter), in particular when actions result in the destruction or damaging of a productive or vital facility, such as equipment, factories, dams, public services, storage plants or logistic routes. Unlike acts of terrorism, acts of sabotage do not always have a primary objective of inflicting casualties. Saboteurs are usually classified as enemies, and like spies may be liable to prosecution and criminal penalties instead of detention as a prisoner of war. It is common for a government in power during war or supporters of the war policy to use the term loosely against opponents of the war. Similarly, German Nationalists spoke of a stab in the back having cost them the loss of World War I.[3]


Workplace sabotage

File:Sabcat2.svg
Ralph Chaplin's black cat sabotage logo. Chaplin stated that the black cat "was commonly used by the boys as representing the idea of sabotage. The idea being to frighten the employer by the mention of the name sabotage, or by putting a black cat somewhere around. You know if you saw a black cat go across your path you would think, if you were superstitious, you are going to have a little bad luck."[4]

When disgruntled workers damage or destroy equipment or interfere with the smooth running of a workplace, it is called workplace sabotage. Radical labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have advocated sabotage as a means of self-defence and direct action against unfair working conditions.

The first references to the terms "sabotage" and "passive resistance" appeared in the IWW press in approximately 1910. These terms were used in connection with a strike against a Chicago clothing company called Lamm & Co.,[5] and the connotation of sabotage in that job action referred to "malingering or inefficient work."[6]

The IWW was shaped in part by the industrial unionism philosophy of Big Bill Haywood, and in 1910 Haywood was exposed to sabotage while touring Europe:

The experience that had the most lasting impact on Haywood was witnessing a general strike on the French railroads. Tired of waiting for parliament to act on their demands, railroad workers walked off their jobs all across the country. The French government responded by drafting the strikers into the army and then ordering them back to work. Undaunted, the workers carried their strike to the job. Suddenly, they could not seem to do anything right. Perishables sat for weeks, sidetracked and forgotten. Freight bound for Paris was misdirected to Lyon or Marseille instead.This tactic — the French called it "sabotage" — won the strikers their demands and impressed Bill Haywood.[7]

For the IWW, sabotage came to mean any withdrawal of efficiency — including the slowdown, the strike, or creative bungling of job assignments.[8]

The extent to which the IWW actually practiced sabotage, other than through their "withdrawal of efficiency," is open to dispute.[9] IWW organizers often counseled workers to avoid any actions that would hurt their own job prospects. Even so, when the term "sabotage" is applied to workers, it is frequently interpreted to mean actual destruction.[10] There is the possibility that the IWW has employed rhetoric about the tactic moreso than actual practice. Of course the expression disgruntled worker may apply to either organized or spontaneous actions, and employers have long hired security guards to prevent and detect any sort of sabotage, whatever the cause.

Sabotage in defense of the environment

Certain groups turn to destruction of property in order to immediately stop environmental destruction or to make visible arguments against forms of modern technology considered as detrimental to the earth and its inhabitants. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies use the term eco-terrorist when applied to damage of property. Proponents argue that since property cannot feel terror, damage to property is more accurately described as sabotage. The image of the monkeywrench thrown into the moving parts of a machine to stop it from working was popularized by Edward Abbey in the novel The Monkeywrench Gang and has been adopted by eco-activists to describe destruction of earth damaging machinery. The ELF is famous for such actions.[11]

Political sabotage

The term political sabotage is sometimes used to define the acts of one political camp to disrupt, harass or damage the reputation of a political opponent, usually during an electoral campaign.

Product sabotage

In marketing and retail, product sabotage is a practice used to encourage the customer to purchase a more profitable product or service as opposed to cheaper alternatives. It is also the practice where a company attempts to aim different prices at different types of customer. There are several methods used in achieving this:

Cheap packaging

This method is commonly used in supermarkets, where their cheapest products are packaged in a cheap and basic packaging. These products are normally displayed alongside the more attractively packed and expensive items, in an attempt to persuade richer customers to buy the more expensive alternative instead.

For example, the Tesco supermarket chain sell a "value" range of products in garish 4 color (purple, orange, white and black) packaging to make them appear unappealing and inferior to their regular brand.

Omitting products from advertisements

Not advertising the cheaper alternatives. An example of this method is Coffee companies, who hide or downplay the cheaper drinks in the hope that customers will buy something pricier. Starbucks and Coffee Republic, who both have a product called 'short cappuccino', are known to use this practice. The staff know what it is, the tills have a button for it, but the product is not listed anywhere on the menu boards. The customers who are not aware of it are likely to purchase one of the more profitable items listed on the menu.

Duplicate manufacture

Manufacturing two versions of the same product at different prices. In the hi-tech world it is common for companies to produce a high-specification product, sold at a premium price, and then sell the same product more cheaply with some of the functions disabled. IBM did this with a printer in the 1990s, where an economy version for a home user was the top-of-the-range model with a microchip in it to slow it down. All versions of Microsoft Vista will ship on an identical DVD, with the precise version installed based on the installation code entered by the consumer.

Notes

  1. Sabotage Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
  2. Shoes for Industry. Word Detective. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
  3. Stab in the Back Legend DokumentARFilm. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
  4. Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World, Salvatore Salerno, 1989, SUNY Press, page 178, from U.S. v. W.D. Haywood, et al, testimony of Ralph Chaplin, July 19, 1918, IWW Collection, Box 112, Folder 7, pp. 7702 & 7711, Labor History Archive, Wayne State University.
  5. The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975, Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin, 1976, page 46.
  6. The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975, Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin, 1976, page 81.
  7. Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 152.
  8. Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, pages 196-197.
  9. Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 197.
  10. The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975, Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin, 1976, page 82.
  11. Domestic terror: Who's most dangerous? CNN. Retrieved April 30, 2007.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Carlson, Peter. Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, W.W. Norton & Co. (1984) ISBN 0393302083
  • Pouget, Emile. Le sabotage; notes et postface de Grégoire Chamayou et Mathieu Triclot, 1913; Mille et une nuit, 2004; English translation, Sabotage, paperback, 112 pp., University Press of the Pacific, 2001, ISBN 0-89875-459-3.
  • Salerno, Salvatore. Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World SUNY Press, 1989 ISBN 0791400883
  • Sprouse, Martin. Sabotage in the American Workplace: Anecdotes of Dissatisfaction, Mischief and Revenge Drop Press, 1992. ISBN 0962709131
  • Thompson, Fred and Patrick Murfin. The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975, (1976).

External links, resources, and references

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