Scabby the Rat is a signature image of organized labor in the USA. The larger-than-life inflatable rodent with bloodshot eyes, spikey claws, and snarling incisors is a well-recognized sight at union pickets, the place his presence alerts office mistreatment and strikebreaking to the larger public.
Now, Scabby is the centerpiece of the continuing exhibition Scabby: A Rat About City by Austrian artist Marlene Hausegger. On view at South Slope’s Open Supply Gallery by means of November 29, the set up combines black-and-white images lacerated with mock rat scratches; audio excerpts from former Amazon employee and present-day union activist Natalie Monarrez; and, naturally, an inflatable Scabby, lined in phrases pulled from Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 tune “Factory.” Painted throughout the rat’s torso and legs, the lyrics have been edited to reference ladies as a substitute of males.
Hausegger informed Hyperallergic that she grew to become intrigued with Scabby when she initially got here throughout the character in 2008 whereas visiting New York Metropolis.
“I saw this blow-up rat for the first time and to me, it was a very dramatic and strong visual of injustice,” Hausegger mentioned.
The present consists of black-and-white images taken by Hausegger at a union motion at a building web site in Manhattan two years in the past.
Whereas doing analysis into Scabby, Hausegger and the gallery’s director Monika Wuhrer discovered that the inflatable rats used at union actions throughout the nation all will be traced again to a single producer in Illinois referred to as Huge Sky Balloons. (Satirically, the enterprise that fabricates the labor rights advocacy icon isn’t unionized itself.)
“It’s a very profitable business and the Scabbies are really, really expensive,” Wuhrer informed Hyperallergic, admitting that for the exhibition, they finally needed to flip to a less expensive choice produced abroad.
“We ended up ordering it from China because it was really the only way to have one in the end,” Wuhrer mentioned.
At Open Supply, the visible influence of Scabby is putting, with the rat taking on half the ground of the gallery area. It’s particularly eye-catching when it intermittently deflates each quarter-hour, its collapse timed with Monarrez’s testimony concerning the unfair labor practices she skilled whereas working at Amazon’s JFK8 facility in Staten Island. After seven years, she was terminated from her place final month, together with different unionized employees, she informed Hyperallergic. And whereas organizing with fellow workers was essential to combating for honest working situations, she famous that unions should not resistant to points that may run rampant in workplaces, together with racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and corrupt management.
The inflatable rat on show, which periodically deflates and inflates, is roofed in altered lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 tune “Factory.”
“I think that’s probably why only 10% of American workers are actually in unions right now, which is a shame,” Monarrez mentioned. She recalled the primary time she noticed Scabby, eight years in the past, additionally in New York Metropolis.
“I do remember instantly thinking, ‘There must be an issue between the workers and the employer,’” she mentioned.
The rodent’s title and its “scabby” stomach come from the time period “scab,” a derogatory nickname for employees who break a strike. “It’s an all encompassing symbol, depending on what your perception is and what your experience is within your union and your workplace,” Monarrez mentioned.
Monarrez is one in every of a number of unionized Amazon employees featured within the 2024 documentary Union directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing, which can display screen at Open Supply Gallery on November 20. The screening, which is a free occasion with a prompt donation, will probably be adopted by a dialog with the movie’s producer Mars Verrone and Labor Arts Director Rachel Bernstein.
