Just found out that the Italian word for 'scab' or strike-breaker is 'crumiro'

It comes from the Crumiri, or Khroumir, a tribal confederation at the border between Algeria and Tunisia. Why??

so first, I have to tell you my surprise listening to this great strike song that a friend sent me.

I was like wait why are they talking about the Khroumirs??

but now an explanation:

the Khroumir were famous for being rebellious to governments in mountains. The instability of the region was a pretext for the French invasion of Tunisia in 1881. so in 19th century terms it meant something like 'savage'

the use of the term to denote strike-breakers may go back to a large strike of (mainly Italian) dock-workers in Marseille in 1901 ( https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciopero_di_Marsiglia)

There were rumours that bosses would break the strike by importing Arab dock-workers to replace Italians

so the non-unionised strikebreakers came to be called, disparagingly, 'Khroumirs', or basically Arab savages, a fun little reminder.

So the history of the term is a tight little reminder of the intersection of European working-class politics with imperial racism

(oh and it's also a delicious kind of biscuit)