Display complaint squeaks by NLRB

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a giant inflatable rat displayed at a worksite is not intimidating.

A giant inflatable rat is not intimidating, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled.

The 16-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide rat was displayed at Brandon Regional Medical Center in Brandon, Fla., in 2003 while a leaflet-bearing union member was stationed near the hospital's entrance. The display grew from a complex labor dispute the Sheet Metal Workers International Assn. had with a contractor and a staffing company the contractor used for a hospital project.

In last month's decision, a majority of NLRB members overruled an administrative law judge and held that the rat and the union members' activities were acceptable under federal regulations.

The displays were not confrontational “as they were stationary and located at sufficient distances from the vehicle and building entrances to the hospital that visitors were not confronted by an actual or symbolic barrier as they arrived or departed from the hospital,” according to the ruling.

“Further, there was no evidence that (the union member) or the individuals attending the rat physically or verbally accosted hospital patrons,” said the decision.

But one NLRB board member disagreed. “For pedestrians or occupants of cars passing in the shadow of a rat balloon, which portrays the presence of a "rat employer' and is surrounded by union agents, the message is unmistakably confrontational and coercive.”

“Clearly, these means of protest owe more to intimidation than persuasion,” he wrote.