In the battle over Philly stadium wages, Fat Cat speaks loudly while offering nary a ‘meow’

The most popular person at the drum-banging, traffic-snarling Unite Here demonstration on Wednesday wasn’t a union leader who exhorted the crowd or a politician who pledged fealty to organized labor.

It wasn’t a person at all. More of a purr-son.

“Fat Cat,” they call him, a 20-foot inflatable feline who looked on impassively, smoking a stout cigar and flashing a diamond pinky ring, as dozens of union protesters were clicked into plastic handcuffs and led away by police.

“A lot of symbolism on Fat Cat,” Unite Local 274 spokesperson Kristianna Brown said, noting how he grips the throat of a hard-hatted laborer with his right paw even as his left sparkles with jewelry.

Who is Fat Cat? Sort of a better-dressed cousin to Scabby the Rat, the scary, presumably rabid rodent that has long been a mascot at union-rights protests in Philadelphia.

Fat Cat would never be found in a sewer. But he might own the utility company or sit on its board of directors, imperious in white shirt, vest, and pin-striped suit, with a red pocket square peeking from his jacket.

On Wednesday Fat Cat padded into the battle between Unite Here Local 274 and Aramark, his whiskered presence a means for the union to taunt the giant, Philadelphia-based food service and facilities company.

At least 45 union demonstrators were taken into police custody after they sat down in the middle of Market Street near 24th, close to Aramark Global Headquarters, in a “civil disobedience” protest.

Unite Here represents about 4,000 workers across the region but may be best known for those who serve food and beverages at the three big sports venues in South Philadelphia, where it’s trying to secure better pay and health benefits.

Some people work for Aramark at the Wells Fargo Center, Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field, at one, two or all three venues, but can earn different hourly wages at each. Fewer than 20 of Aramark’s hundreds of Wells Fargo Center workers have year-round health insurance, the union said.

“Aramark makes billions and billions of profit every year, and they don’t want to treat us right,” said Carlton Epps, who says that despite working three jobs at three venues, he can barely afford health care to help cover the cost of his diabetes medication.

Aramark spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment on Fat Cat.

The cat didn’t arrive at the protest bearing a dramatic origin story. Unite Here borrowed him from another union.

And the term fat cat in this instance doesn’t mean a kitty that needs to lose weight. It’s pejorative, initially employed in the 1920s to describe political donors whose wealth gave them influence over candidates and officeholders.

The phrase was coined by journalist and political thinker Frank Kent in the pages of H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury, wrote Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It was used to describe “a very rich person who wanted to buy political influence, a robber baron.” Particularly one who had piled up so much money that it no longer held interest, who yearned for public honor.

From there the term became part of the lexicon.

In the 1960 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey bitterly complained that he could not match the riches behind Massachusetts Sen. John Kennedy, declaring, “I’m not the candidate of the fat cats.” Fifty years later President Barack Obama decried “fat cat bankers on Wall Street” who took government bailout money even though they helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.

These days the term has become a bit of a throwback, the rich and influential more commonly described as “elites” or “one-percenters.”

Still, nearly everyone knows the meaning.

For some among the more than 200 demonstrators who broiled in the sun on Market Street, Fat Cat offered not just a point of conversation but also shade. Some people crowded against the feline’s rear haunch before the rally officially began.

Organizers said to look for Fat Cat at future events. And that he might come with a friend.

“Everybody knows the rat,” Brown said. “The Fat Cat is like the level before that.”

Staff writer Hannah Nguyen contributed to this article.