Scabby the Rat is a good, wholesome rat. He is a bit cumbersome and rabid-looking, but he always fights the good fight on behalf of American workers. Naturally, Hell World is trying to take him down, and the National Labor Relations Board’s current leadership has just about had it with Scabby.
According to a report from Bloomberg Law, Peter Robb, the general counsel for the NLRB, has been working since April to find a way to overturn three decades worth of precedent and kill the 10-foot-tall labor symbol. “GC hates the rat,” an individual identified as a senior NLRB official told Bloomberg.
For roughly 30 years, Scabby has been protected as a First Amendment expression of protest, his name taken from the term “scab,” used against those who try to break strikes or cross picket lines. Robb, who joined the NLRB in November 2017, previously made his way as a lawyer representing a client in the elevator business. As a management-friendly attorney, he does not think such protections should apply to Scabby; according to the aforementioned senior NLRB official, Robb is hoping to make it so that no picketing, striking, or hand-billing can take place when Scabby is around.
To achieve this end, the NLRB joined the fight against a local union in a federal case out of Illinois. NLRB lawyers filed in an injunction in December on behalf of an Illinois excavation company that initially conceded the legal precedent for workers to roll out Scabby; in a motion filed following the injunction, they argued those cases were “wrongly decided” and “should be overruled,” per Bloomberg.
Scabby typically scurries out in front of buildings using scabs or engaging in union-busting. He comes in different shapes and sizes, but the intention is the same regardless of where you spot him: Scabby exists to let the world know who is screwing over their workers. Don’t let some boss-humping desk jockey kill this American hero.