Skip to main content
As WW recently reported, a giant inflatable rat made an appearance last week during a labor dispute in Portland. I have seen this tactic deployed in other such disputes over the years. Where does one acquire a giant inflatable rat? Who makes them? And are they manufactured and shipped by union-represented folks? —Kirby G.
I passed your question along to International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701, Kirby, but as of my deadline I hadn’t heard back. (This may or may not have had something to do with your final question, which reminds me of those guys who feel the need to ask every vegan they meet if they wear leather shoes.) Lucky for us, the rat’s history is well documented elsewhere.
Had IUOE responded, I was primed to let them take a victory lap, since they’re the union that first brought Scabby the Rat into the world. Riffing on the expression “rat contractor,” Chicago engineer and union organizer Jim Sweeney created the Ratmobile, topped by a then-unnamed 6-foot inflatable rat, back in the late 1980s. (The name “Scabby” was chosen through a reader contest in IUOE Local 150′s newsletter in 1989.)
Since then, Scabby has doubled or tripled in size and spread internationally, becoming as indispensable to labor protests as Dancing Flappy Tube Guy is to tire store clearance sales. The rat used in last week’s protest appears to be the original (and still most popular) design trademarked by Big Sky Balloon and Searchlight in Plainfield, Ill., which created the first Scabby. By 2013, Big Sky was reportedly selling around 100 Scabbys a year, because management’s greed never sleeps.
Today, the link on Big Sky’s website for “Union Inflatables” takes you to the site of a different company: Brunswick, Ohio’s Inflatable Images, where an extensive gallery includes photos from protests featuring not only Scabby the Rat, but also Corporate Fat Cat and Greedy Pig—a veritable Labor Cinematic Universe! (It’s like a distant RC Cola to Marvel and DC’s Coke and Pepsi.)
One can’t help noticing that Inflatable Images’ website doesn’t include the words “Made in USA”—a selling point you’d think they’d make if they could. Also, seemingly identical versions of the characters above are for sale from Chinese-everything retailer DHGate.com. Are the unions—or rather, their American suppliers—having their rats manufactured in China? Maybe. But given that no one even makes bicycle tires on U.S. soil anymore, there may well be no other choice. (Short of doing without entirely, of course—but what could be more un-American than that?)
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.