The Rats and the Big Rats
The Bush appointed National Labor Relations Board is poised to curtail the use of those giant inflatable rats that we’ve grown to love. A staple of labor demonstrations for the last decade, the rats are apparently a victim of their own success: increasingly viewed as a signal to the public not to patronize certain ratty, union-busting establishments. That any branch of the government would ban an effective tactic of the labor movement should come as no surprise. The law’s just not on our side. The Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin amendments to the National Labor Relations Act expressly restricted labor’s solidarity power by banning so-called “secondary activity.” “Primary activity,” for your edification, would be the employees of Company A striking and boycotting the products of Company A (for example: the UFW grape-pickers at Gallo striking and calling for a boycott of Gallo wines – that boycott is now over, by the way). […]