Labor's Huge Rubber Rat, Caught in a Legal Maze
The inflatable rubber rat, bucktoothed bane of strikebreakers and emblem of union wrath, may be headed for retirement. The National Labor Relations Board is now considering a case that could make it harder to employ one on a picket line.
At issue in the case is whether the rat is the equivalent of picketing, which can be restricted under federal law, or a form of free speech, which enjoys far fewer limitations. The case, which was filed three years ago, is slowly percolating through the system, but the labor board is poised to make a ruling. If it decides the rat is, indeed, a form of picketing, it could have a chilling effect on its use.
"It's going to inhibit the rat," said Alvin Blyer, the director of the Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island region of the board. The board's national office will eventually rule on the case.
For those unfamiliar with the rat, consider this description provided in a ruling by Steven Davis, an administrative law judge for the board who heard the case in his Brooklyn court in March:
"The rat presents an imposing figure," the ruling says. "The rats here were 15 or 30 feet high. The body of the rat is gray with pink eyes, ears and nose. Its sits on its haunches with its front paws outstretched and claws extended. Its mouth is open, baring its teeth."
The case arose in 2002 when a concrete pouring firm, Concrete Structures Inc., filed a complaint with the board against the Laborers' Eastern Region Organizing Fund, which arranges job actions on behalf of the Laborers' International Union of North America.
Concrete Structures was doing work at several subdivisions on Long Island and at the Mills Pond Elementary School in Smithtown. The union organizers set the rat up at work sites to protest what they saw as unfair work conditions and to publicize the fact that Concrete Structures used nonunion labor.
In his 30-page opinion, Judge Davis ruled against the rat.
"The union's use of the rat," he wrote, "constituted confrontational conduct intended to persuade third persons not to do business with Concrete."
He continued: "A rat is a well-known symbol of a labor dispute and is a signal to third persons that there is an invisible picket line they should not cross."
The union has appealed the judge's ruling, and its lawyer, Lowell Peterson, said he was confident the rat would survive, even if the labor board decides against it.
"Ultimately, I think the rat will be vindicated, if you will," he said. "Their theory that there's something magical about the rat is wrong. There's nothing magical about a rat - it's just ugly."
Some labor leaders said they could not comment publicly on the case because it has not been decided, though they acknowledged that the rat is a surefire weapon in the union arsenal that would be dearly missed.
"It's a thing that's widely used," said Thomas Van Arsdale, the business manager of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which is embroiled in its own dispute with the labor board, partly due to a rat.
"It's only real purpose is to attract attention," Mr. Van Arsdale said. "Beyond that, what's the harm?"
At any given moment, labor leaders say, as many as 35 rubber rats are at work around the region. They come in different shapes and sizes. One rat, cited in Judge Davis' ruling, is actually a gorilla with the head of a rat.
The rats cost $3,500 to $7,500, depending on their size, and, for at least one union, Local 79 of the Construction and General Building Laborers, they are made by Big Sky Balloons and Searchlights of Plainfield, Ill. This local claims to be the first to have introduced the rat in New York City in 1997 after having seen the rodent on the job in Chicago.
Even if the rat does disappear, Mr. Peterson said, it will not really matter. The unions have a host of beasts in their menageries.
"You don't like the rat?" he said. "Fine. We're going to use a skunk."
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