NLRB rules that display of inflatable rat balloon at secondary employer is permitted under labor law

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NLRB

May 26, 2011

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a union practice of displaying a large inflatable rat balloon at a secondary employer’s premises to protest the labor practices of its non-union contractor is not coercive, and so does not violate U.S. labor law.

The case, Sheet Metal Workers Local 15 (Brandon Regional Medical Center), was originally decided by the Board in January 2006. In that decision, the Board found that a mock funeral staged by the union in front of an acute care hospital was unlawfully coercive. Given that decision, the Board found it unnecessary to rule on the display of the inflatable rat balloon.

The union, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local 15, which had been protesting the hospital’s use of non-union contractors, appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In June 2007, the court reversed the Board’s decision, finding that the use of a faux coffin and a costumed Grim Reaper outside the hospital was not “coercive.” The case was remanded to the Board for review of other issues raised in the case, including the legality of the balloon display.

Today’s 3-to-1 Board decision follows the reasoning laid out by the Board in Carpenters Local 15006 (Eliason & Knuth of Arizona, Inc.), 355 NLRB No. 159 (2010), which found the display of large stationary banners at secondary employer locations was not unlawful.

The National Labor Relations Act prohibits conduct found to “threaten, coerce, or restrain” a secondary employer not directly involved in a primary labor dispute, if the object of that conduct is to cause the secondary to cease doing business with the primary employer. Under existing precedent, picketing that seeks a consumer boycott of a secondary is usually coercive and therefore unlawful, whereas stationary handbilling with that same object is not, and is therefore protected speech. The question before the Board was where the use of a 16-foot-tall inflatable rat balloon falls on that continuum.

The Board majority – Chairman Wilma B. Liebman and Members Craig Becker and Mark Pearce – found that the balloon display did not involve any confrontational conduct, unlike picketing. Nor was the display coercive in other ways, the majority found. It observed that the union agents involved in the display did not move, shout, impede access, or otherwise interfere with the hospital’s operations. Rather, the “rat balloon itself was symbolic speech. It certainly drew attention to the Union’s grievance and cast aspersions on , but we perceive nothing in the location, size or features of the balloon that were likely to frighten those entering the hospital, disturb patients or their families, or otherwise interfere with the business of the hospital.”

Dissenting, Member Brian Hayes found that the display was coercive, and therefore unlawful. “Considered in the abstract, or viewed from afar, the display of a gigantic inflated rat might seem more comical than coercive,” Member Hayes wrote. “Viewed from nearby, the picture is altogether different and anything but amusing. For pedestrians or occupants of cars passing in the shadow of a rat balloon, which proclaims the presence of a “rat employer” and is surrounded by union agents, the message is unmistakably confrontational and coercive.”

This news release constitutes no part of the decision of the National Labor Relations Board. It has been prepared by the Office of Public Affairs for the convenience of the public. For more information about the NLRB, visit our website at www.nlrb.gov.

FULL title: After remand by US appeals court, NLRB rules that display of inflatable rat balloon at secondary employer is permitted under labor laws

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[murielm99]

1. The unions around here have a ratmobile.

They drive it around to construction sites that use nonunion labor.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. GO SCABBY!!!

The rat has a name.
I saw one in front of a seafood restaurant in New York City at Christmas of 2003 where the workers were on strike. I walked through the crow giving them a thumbs up!!

[petronius]

3. Seems like a very fine distinction - do I understand correctly that they ruled

picketing (I take that to mean walking with signs) was coercive, but that standing still with those same signs would not be? What's the difference? :shrug:

I do love the big rat, though; I crack up every time I see it...

[eggplant]

4. If I had to guess...

...(And I do, since I don't know the details of the decision) I would say that "picketing" means marching in a line, usually across a driveway or walkway. To get past it, you have to literally "cross" it, and so it impedes people. Unless they stick Scabby in the middle of the road, it doesn't impede anyone.

Just my guess.

[MiniMe]

7. When I saw it, they had it tied down in the back of a pickup truck

[petronius]

8. That was my guess, as well - it just seems narrow. Isn't already illegal to actively impede

foot or vehicle traffic. Every time I've seen a picket line, it seemed like people who wanted to cross it were perfectly able to (of course, I have no personal experience of doing that, so perhaps the procedure is more complex than I realize).

It just seems like there isn't a real difference between a line of picketers walking back and forth, and the same people just standing there. :shrug:

(And now that I think about it, I think the ideal situation would be to find a way to make the giant rat walk back and forth. Or even an army of them... :) )

[SoapBox]

5. May be a big RAT should be taken around to the offices of the...

...GOBPers, RushThugs and T.HATERbaggers.

Just a thought!

[MiniMe]

6. I've seen them protesting in DC with that rat

And while the rat was not disruptive, the fact that they were beating on a 5 gallon bucket while they are chanting is. I can't imagine that to be a good thing in a hospital zone, of course, they may not have been beating that bucket in the hospital zone. And before you ask, I did not read he link