The National Labor Relations Board said July 21 that an Indiana union has the right to display a 12-ft-tall inflatable rat named Scabby, along with provocative banners, outside an Indiana trade show in order to boycott Lippert Components Inc., which worked with another company involved in a labor dispute.
A banner displayed outside the trade show by a local faction of the International Union of Operating Engineers read: "Shame on Lippert Components, Inc. for harboring rat contractors."
NLRB在3-1号决定中，维护了一对奥巴马时代裁决，称，表现横幅和大型可充气数据，如喀布比并未违反国家劳动关系法案在工会抵制期间禁止威胁或强制行为。
NLRB主席Lauren McFerran是一名民主党人拜登1月任命的民主党人写道，董事会决定潜在侵犯联盟的自由言论权，排除了以前发现横幅和充气大鼠是非法的。共和党NLRB成员Marvin Kaplan和John Ring，同时考虑了McFerran的意见，写道，虽然Iuoe当地的行为是合法的，但2010年和2011年发布的董事会决定太广泛，可以通过工会屏蔽强制活动。
董事会第三届共和党成员威廉·埃米瓦尔（William Emanuel）强烈来自裁决，称奥巴马 - 时代先例被缺陷，因为它适用于全国劳动关系法禁止威胁和胁迫的阅读。他还说，它激励了工会参与应该禁止的行为。
Secondary Protests
被称为“二级抗议”，利用聘用第三方被劳动工会抵制的公司的横幅和充气的利用，并不是劳动行动本身的主题，长期划分了任命其成员的董事会和共和党和民主主管部门。建筑贸易团体普遍促进了决定。
"The NLRB decision reaffirming the status quo is disappointing to the construction industry because it allows unions to continue to engage in coercive tactics towards neutral parties, contrary to the intent of federal labor laws," said Ben Brubeck, Associated Builders and Contractors' vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs.
"We generally agreed with NLRB member Emanuel’s dissenting opinion. Scabby and other union balloon creatures are examples of threatening and/or coercive conduct during union pickets and boycotts and should constitute secondary activity," Brubeck said.
NLRB's former general counsel, Peter Robb, an appointee of President Trump, had argued in the Lippert case that inflatables and provocative banners were unlawful. President Biden fired Robb on his first day in office in January. His replacement, Obama-era deputy general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, was confirmed on July 21 just as this decision was handed down.
Iuoe和北美的建筑工会没有立即返回关于该决定的评论请求，但主要工会，其他劳动团体和左倾的宣传团体参与其中，包括美国的公民自由联盟，赞扬了该决定。
The Associated General Contractors of America—which joined ABC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups in filing amicus briefs against the use of banners and inflatables in secondary protests—explained that the reasoning behind the decision is narrow, and that's why the industry group supported a broader reading of secondary protests.
"The NLRB, during the Obama administration, established a relatively lenient standard for assessing the lawfulness of union bannering and displays of Scabby the rat," said Denise Gold, AGC associate general counsel specializing in labor issues. "They basically apply the same standards that applies to peaceful hand-billling; that's what they equated it to, as opposed to the more stringent standard that applies to picketing."
黄金表示，使用如刀本和大横幅的字符在纠察的定义内不会正落在纠察中，这使得它们的使用定义向董事会解释了NLRA并确定这种类型的行为落下的地方以及哪种标准应该在哪里申请。虽然特朗普政府的NLRB在Robb下，我们试图将活动定义为超出手中标准的某些活动，但该决定重申奥巴马时代的定义。
