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). “Secondary activity” would be the employees of Company A calling for a boycott of Company B for engaging in business with company A (for example, the UFW picketing wine stores that continued to carry struck Gallo wines – something that never happened, because of the law).
Try to imagine Teamsters deliverymen refusing to transport struck goods or UFCW grocery clerks refusing to sell struck goods or even UNITE HERE garment workers picketing Gap stores for selling sweatshop-made underwear, and you’ll see how the law denied the labor movement one of its most potent weapons. In fact, all of this talk about how the labor movement was at its peak membership when the AFL merged with the CIO in 1955 usually fails to mention that Taft-Hartley was passed by Congress in 1947, and Landrum-Griffin followed in 1959.
What about free speech, do I hear you cry? Well, yes, there is that pesky first amendment, and the courts have ruled that speech alone is exempt from labor regulations.
So, one can stand in front of a wine store and shout, “Do not shop in this store, because the rats are selling lousy wine made by scabs,” and that is fine. You can even hand out fliers saying the same.
Once you combine that free speech with any kind of activity (say, picket lines or picket signs), the courts have ruled that you are making an illegal “signal” to the general public to boycott the establishment, in violation of the amended National Labor Relations Act.
About ten years ago, the Laborers union begin accompanying their handbilling with large inflatable rats, as way of attracting attention to themselves and their message. The idea caught on like wildfire and other unions started doing the same. The message was certainly not a clear signal at first. I remember the first time I handbilled with a big rat, sometime in 1997 or 1998. More than a handful of passersby stopped and asked, “Is this about Giuliani?”
Now, people love the rat. As the sight of the big inflatable rats has become more familiar in New York City, people cheer when they see them, honk in support and jeer the bosses (whom, the rats are meant to evoke, in case the meaning was lost on you) and the judges and lawyers have taken note. “The rats think the big rats are a ‘signal,'” noted my UMass classmate, Jen Badgley, when we first heard about this in our labor law class this spring.
The rats admittedly are a signal to those of us with a little conscience and class consciousness (although, I’m not really sure how many people truly have the cause of labor in their hearts to allow for any kind of activity to be a meaningful “signal”). My favorite rat quote comes from the legendary president of the Transport Workers Union, Mike Quill, who responded to Taft-Hartley’s anti-Communist provisions by saying, “I’d rather be called a red by the rats than a rat by the reds.”
Another quote from Mike Quill is more appropriate at this time: “the judge can drop dead in his black robes.” That’s what he said to the press after being sentenced to prison for taking his union out on strike in violation of New York’s public sector Taylor Law.
Three weeks later, it was Quill who was dead, felled by a heart attack. Jail was not kind to the old man. Such is labor’s lot.
The Aristocrats
“The Aristocrats” is a disappointment. For all the talk of how the World’s Dirtiest Joke is like some great jazz improv, which improves with each new teller’s unique voice, mostly, it’s the same joke. There’s diarrhea, there’s incest, there’s Joe Franklin and the same lame punchline.
I always thought the joke was that aristocrats (like England’s royal family) actually engage in some of the child-fucking, shit-eating acts described in the joke’s set-up. In fact, the punchline is meant to contrast the genteel evocation of the “aristocracy” with the foul deeds detailed in the joke itself. For that reason, the montage of interviews with comedians laughing at the existence of a better punchline (“the sophisticates!”) around the middle of the film is one of its funniest bits.
Likewise, when comedians digress from the established joke into hilariously ribald tangents, the film finally hits its stride. George Carlin riffs on the consistency of diarrhea, Gilbert Godfried explains the preponderance of blood in the set-up, Sarah Silverman makes it personal with Joe Franklin and damn near everyone picks on the absent Gallagher.
“Tell me a joke” would have been a better motivation for the filmmakers than “tell me the same old dirty joke.”
Left Field Day at Shea
Join the Socialist Party on Tuesday, September 13 at 7:00 for “Left Field Day at Shea.”
We’ve got a block of seats for the Mets vs. Nationals baseball game, so the New York Mets will welcome the Socialist Party on the scoreboard!
Tickets are only $5, and we’ll all be sitting together way out in the left field upper deck.
Despite a few bad games lately, the Mets are in a wild card race, so the game itself should be exciting, but we’ll also be taking the opportunity to protest the war in Iraq, public money stadium giveaways and corporate sponsorship stadium names.
Bring a sign. Bring a kazoo. Bring your wacky commie newspapers.
To sit with the Socialist Party, get in touch with me ASAP. There are a few tickets left.
“Children by the Million”
The disastrous magnitude of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the Gulf Coast is almost inconceivable. I’ll hardly bother with a political commentary on the government’s woefully inadequate response to, and preparation for, this utterly predictable storm. I don’t think that we, as a society, are going to learn the lessons we need from this.
Global climate change is real, and it’s magnifying the size and impact of storms like Katrina, but don’t expect Bush to sign the Kyoto treaty. The National Guard belongs here, protecting the nation, not occupying foreign nations, but don’t expect our governors to demand the immediate return of their states’ troops. Natural disasters are much more likely, and predictable threats than fantastic terrorist threats, but don’t expect the Department of Homeland Security to focus on coastal evacuation. We’ll learn nothing, and this will happen again. Perhaps next time it will be Long Island.
I haven’t been near a television this week, so it’s hard to comprehend reports of dead bodies floating in the water and the thousands who are feared dead. And so, paradoxically, I am focused on one man.
Alex Chilton is missing.
Chilton is not a celebrity, or even a rock star really. He’s kinda the ultimate cult figure. The invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
He first hit the top of the pop charts as a 16-year-old in the late 60’s with the band the Box Tops. His deep growl, which powered hits “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby,” was produced by the amphetamines he was force-fed by his producers (the same svengalies who likely pocketed all the dough).
He resurfaced a few years later with the first significant power pop band, Big Star. Their first two records undersold, although, like the Velvet Underground, it seems as though everyone who bought those records formed a band. (A cover of one of their songs, “In the Street,” served as the theme song to the sitcom, “That 70’s Show” and probably provided Chilton with the biggest paycheck of his life.)
Big Star’s unfinished third record is the stuff of legend. The band, their relationships and even their record label were disintegrating during the recording of “Sister Lovers.” The result is haunting. Some songs are pissed off and defiant. Others are sad and resigned. Some trail off into nothingness. The record finally saw the light of day a decade later when Chilton became a cult figure.
He produced the Cramps and became a hero of the punk movement, touring London on a legendary bender. REM praised him. The Bangles covered him. The Replacements recorded a tribute to him, simply called “Alex Chilton.”
Chilton, meanwhile, continued to be a legendary fuck-up. He left plenty of unfinished records, his own and even half of a never-completed Replacements record. Finally, he sobered up and frustrated his new young fans by recording R&B covers instead of new paeans to young love and angst.
I saw Alex Chilton play live twice. The first time was at the old Bottom Line club, when he delivered a set of those R&B covers. The club is intimate enough that you could whisper your requests to him. Every plea for “September Gurls” or “I’m In Love With a Girl” would be met with a sly smile, a promise that that was the next song on the set list and another R&B cover. I loved him for it.
The last time I saw Alex Chilton was at the World Trade Center, which hosted a free lunchtime oldies concert every Tuesday during the summer of 2001. Chilton played with a reunited Box Tops for an audience of grey-haired old-time fans and pink-haired new fans. I remember looking up during the show to watch a few seagulls fly in between those two towers, scraping the sky. Two weeks later, that image, and the sound of Alex Chilton’s voice, haunted me as I watched images on teevee of seagulls flying out of the thick plumes of smoke and debris that rose from the collapsing towers.
And, now, there’s another national disaster and I’m thinking about Alex Chilton again.
According to his record label, Alex Chilton remained behind at his home in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached. He hasn’t been heard from since, and his name is listed among the missing on the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s website.
In his old tribute, “Alex Chilton,” Replacements singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg concludes “If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool,” but he was probably imagining a death of old age after a long life and career of writing and recording beautiful, sad, frustrating, awe-inspiring songs. At 54, Chilton is hardly old. He deserves the chance to make it back to Memphis. This is not cool.
(Thanks to Tommy for bringing this to my attention.)