By Devin Gannon
July 12, 2017
Despite a nationwide decline
in union membership, New York City continues to defy this trend. The number of
city workers who belong to unions has risen for the last three years in a row, growing from 21.5
percent of all workers to 25.5 percent in 2016. And because of this high number
of unionized employees, city residents have become even more familiar with
Scabby the Rat–one of the most recognizable symbols of unions. The giant
inflatable rodent, with its sharp buck teeth and beady red eyes, has been a
staple of union construction protests in NYC and across the country for
decades, and if there’s a development project that enlists nonunion labor in
New York, expect to see Scabby out on the street.
For over 40 years, NYC unions have used rats
as a symbol of protest. Workers who used to replace union workers during a
labor strike were historically called “rats” or “scabs,” explaining the origins
of the moniker. The first reference in print of using an inflatable rat at a
union protest appeared in a 1976 New York Times article about a sanitation
worker strike. However, it wasn’t until 1990 that the inflatable Scabby the Rat
as we know it today came about.
Peggy and
Mike O’Connor, who own Big Sky Balloons and Searchlights Inc., can be credited
with designing the menacing looking rat. The Illinois-based company owners told Vice about the first time an organization
called them seeking an inflatable rat. The idea first came from organizers Ken
Lambert and Don Newton from District Council 1 of the International Union of
Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. “Mike and the organizers were going back
and forth, saying, ‘We need it more snarly,’” Peggy said. “They wanted a mean,
ghastly looking kind of rat.” Since then, the design of Scabby remains the
same.
While the original Scabby design is the most
popular, the O’Connors have developed a variety of protest balloons for unions
to employ. There are currently seven different sizes of Scabby; a six-foot rat
costs $2,585 and a 25-foot rat costs $9,295. In addition to customizing
Scabby–customers can choose different colors and long or short claws–Big Sky
Balloons sell “fat cats,” “greedy pigs,” and “union bug” inflatables.
And Scabby
isn’t going anywhere. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that
Scabby represents a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.
Later in 2014, a federal judge in Brooklyn backed the right of local laborers’
union to use the rat in a protest. Today, Scabby (who has Twitter account
devoted to him @ScabbyTheRat) can be found at strikes, protests and
outside of places where unions want to direct their message.
No comments:
Post a Comment