Employees at non-union shops are not Scabs. As pointed out above, if your company decided to lease your pile driver to a non-union company I'm sure they wouldn't feel the need to consult the union.

I agree that the railroad unions are not going away anytime soon. They may not have as much power as they once did, but I feel they do a fair job protecting individual members from harassment and unjust firings. Are they successful all the time? No, but without a union it would be easy to replace anyone that looked cross eyed at the boss, with the line of folks wanting a well paid job.

An old trainmaster once told me that union work rules also protected the railroad from itself, if the railroad didn't have some boundaries they could really get screwed up.