Chumbawamba: Picking On Scabs

12/25/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bruce Haring

(12/25/97) - Anarchist collective Chumbawamba were appalled to learn they'd been interviewed by a strike-breaker during a recent stint in Detroit.

The band, on tour in support of their monster album Tubthumper, unwittingly gave an interview to a reporter from the Detroit News, which replaced striking reporters with non-union personnel (commonly called"scabs") last year.

Informed of her mistake by a socially-conscious friend, Chumbawamba's Alice Nutter said during a Detroit radio interview that she was horrified, and invited "all newspaper strikers" to come down to the band's show that evening.

Nutter also personally called on-strike workers to apologize and invited them down to discuss the strike issues from the stage and to sell copies of the Sunday Journal, the paper that strikers have started. Chumbawamba have a song on their new album concerning a Liverpool dock-worker strike.

Sue Whitall, one of the strikers, told Rock & Roll Confidentialthat Nutter also said she let Universal Records know in no uncertain terms that the scabs aren't to be serviced with any Chumbawamba material from now on.