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Inflated Rats: Still Uncertain Whether They Are Considered Pickets

Several unions have used large inflated rats to advertise their disputes with employers. Sometimes those inflated rats are set up in places where the union cannot lawfully picket, such as at a neutral entrance of a reserved entrance system. If the inflated rats are, in effect, pickets, then placing them where the union cannot picket would be unlawful.

The NLRB recently ruled, in Laborers' Eastern Regional Organizing Fund (The Ranches at Mt. Sinai), 346 NLRB No. 105, that, because other conduct showed the union engaged in an unlawful secondary boycott, it was unnecessary for the Board to rule on whether the Administrative Law Judge was correct that the union's inflated rat was a signal picket. The effect of the Board's ruling is that we still do not know whether inflated rats will be considered pickets (a) always, (b) only in specific situations, or (c) not at all because they are expression of free speech. Stay tuned.

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