N.Y. judge’s ruling: Scabby the Rat can stay
The board that enforces federal labor law has its eye on the inflatable protest mascot, but it will live to see another day.
Scabby the Rat will live to see another day after a New York judge ruled that the inflatable protest mascot can remain outside of several Staten Island ShopRites.
Not only can the bucktoothed, red-eyed rodent stay — but it would “raise serious constitutional concerns" for a judge to stop a construction union from using it, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote in his decision, according to a Bloomberg Law report.
The Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had asked a judge to stop the protests outside the supermarkets while it investigated whether the Construction and General Building Laborers’ Local 79 was violating federal labor law with the use of the rat. It was the latest in a series of attacks on Scabby by NLRB general counsel Peter Robb, a Trump appointee.
The rat, and sometimes the inflatable fat-cat, are a familiar sight on the sidewalks of Philadelphia, used by various building-trade unions as a way to protest the use of non-union labor. The imposing inflatable is often accompanied by union members passing out fliers about the developer they’re protesting and a noise-polluting generator that keeps the animal inflated. The Laborers District Council in Philadelphia said in 2015 that it had four rats. Electricians union IBEW Local 98 even has a rat-mobile.