`Scabby the Rat’ Balloon Fuels Free-Speech Row on Unions’ Rights

June 21, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

A rat bigger than even the rodents of New York City is the linchpin of a case that may prompt the U.S. labor board to reinterpret how, when or even if certain union protests are protected by labor laws and the First Amendment.

A dispute out of Philadelphia involving Scabby the Rat, an inflatable protest icon used by unions for decades, is finally before the four current members of the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board, following a lengthy effort by agency general counsel Peter Robb to find a case that could be used to get use of the rat outlawed. ...

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