NLRB Counts Giant Inflatable Rats as Free Speech

A recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board validates the union practice of displaying giant inflatable rats at a secondary employer’s premises to protest another employer’s labor practices. While unions are allowed to picket a “primary employer” with whom they have a direct labor conflict, the National Labor Relations Act prohibits them from picketing a “secondary employer,” that deals with the primary employer, in a manner that would threaten, coerce, or restrain the secondary employer. However, the board ruled that the giant rat was symbolic speech, and not confrontational conduct, and thus exempt from the ban. According to Labor Relations Today, the decision, in combination with another recent decision on hanging banners, has significantly weakened the NLRA’s secondary boycott provisions. And in the kind of irony that you just can’t make up – it turns out that the inflatable rat used by the union is made in a non-union shop.