Rats Off to Ya!

Via Fark, the New Jersey Supreme Court is looking at the case of union members who displayed a big black plastic rat at a protest and, as it happened, broke the law.

The super-sized rat — on its hind legs and bearing fangs — had been blown up and situated at a 2005 labor event until police ticketed the senior union official onsite for violating a local sign law.

The event, at Gold's Gym in Lawrence, was staged by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) to protest low wages being paid to electricians by an out-of-area contractor. The rat is a symbol used by organized labor to signal a labor dispute or the use of nonunion workers.

The labor official, Wayne DeAngelo, was fined $100 plus $33 court costs for violating a Lawrence Township ordinance preventing the display of the large, rat-shaped balloon.

The law bans banners, streamers and inflatable signs, except those announcing grand openings.

This isn't such a weird story: Those inflatable rats are everywhere. Union protestors prop one up in downtown D.C. every couple of weeks, shaming some shop or another. Lawrence's law is a pretty minor quality-of-life measure (look at that tiny fine), but that doesn't mean it's constitutional.

Headline explained here (kind of).