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One of the most popular tips over at Gothamist Contribute is sightings of the Giant Inflatable Rat, a favorite tool of pro-union protestors around the city. Now all of you rat fans can unite at The Rat Patrol, a group for G.I.R. enthusiasts at Flickr. Also, check out all the other members of the giant inflatable animal family. We're totally getting the Giant Inflatable Panda for our next happy hour!
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try having to stare at one every day for the last five months while you walk in circles for hours. They get kinda old kinda fast.
What's better than one GIR? TWO GIR's! The apartment building going up on the corner of Atlantic & Smith in Brooklyn is apparently a non-union affair. And yes, they have a rat problem- the old-school rat on Atlantic, and a new-school rat with inflatable stubble/whiskers on State.
Most mornings the GIR on Atlantic has company in the form of some union folk blowing whistles chanting "The Union's going to Win!" And that's fine, except for the fact that no one's even on the job yet and they are right below someone's apartment.
I guess it's not really about the non-union workers and more about the public shaming.
You know what would be a great Gothamist interview? Somebody who rents or owns those big rats.
YES! I love them!!
I TOTALLY agree that an interview with a GIR-associated person would be cool.
I still don't understand the law re. the labor.
Is it that construction companies are free to choose any kind of workers, and if they don't choose Union members, then the GIR owner/renters come to protest so they can draw attention to the issue? Or is it actually illegal to build with non-union labor?
The GIR protest today and yesterday on Spring & Lafayette is against a VERY high-end building (conversion offices to luxury condos) so I don't get why the owners of that building would choose non-union labor when it was pretty much inevitable that the GIR groups would expose them? Do the residents of the condos (which seem to be all or mostly occupied already) care that there's non-Union labor, and if so could they do anything about it now?
You really want to piss those union guys off ask them if the rat is union made. Hoooooo boy do they get pissed. Rat is most likely made in the same place as those wal mart inflatable hoo has that were popping up this past holiday season in the burbs.
Whats the point of protesting a job site that is already non-union, they arent going to switch mid-job and in 18mo the job is finished and no one will know who built it. Either protest the developers main office or on-site during the sales-rental phase, otherwise the whole thing is stupid - and how does the Union have so many people to sit outside next to an inflatible rat all day (Do you have to know Tony Soprano to get that gig?)
David -- Oddly enough, one of the GIRs appeared in a Sopranos sometime last season, IIRC. As a GIR fan, I clapped with delight.
Does anybody know a site or store i can buy a union rat t-shirt. or even a union if they sell them too. thanks
The most alluring thing about the GIF is how poorly it’s designed, but I think there in lies it’s compelling je-ne-sais-quoi.
Because only the most inartistic of minds could conceive something so obtuse, ugly and incongruous to their cause as a Teamster with a sketch pad. Yet somehow, it misses the mark on all the precise points simultaneously that it magically transcends everything we understand about aesthetics and becomes a perfect fitting symbol of angry mustached men in caps drinking cawfee.
And if anyone has been lucky enough to catch a rare glimpse of new brown GIR 2.0 you’ll noticed it has been creatively upgraded and adorned with festering warts and boils on it’s underbelly. You can’t make this stuff up, let alone teach it any any design school. The garish teeth, the psychotic eyes, the cartoonish claws...it’s amazing, really. And this is symbol they choose to exude empathy to the serious plight of the working man.
Viva la RAT!
does anyone know how to get one of these rats? need as a prop for set, looking to pay.