Scabby the Rat has guarded picket lines across the country from Seattle to Times Square -- and even traveled to New Jersey once to star in an episode of "The Sopranos."

But the ugly gray vinyl-balloon rat with beady red eyes and a vicious snarl likes to call Chicago home.

Mike O'Connor, co-owner of Big Sky Balloons and Searchlights in Plainfield, takes credit for creating the first inflatable rodent, which has become a union symbol used during job actions to condemn the "dirty" behavior of the disputed business, as well as the "scabs" who cross the picket line.

The story of Scabby began 20 years ago when a Chicago union tradesman contacted O'Connor and asked him to design a giant rat balloon.

"I drew up one that was a little too cutesy for his liking," O'Connor recalled.

So he made a few adjustments. The next sketch "had fangs and festering nipples and claws and a pink tail."

After that, he said, "they multiplied, just like real rats."

Big Sky Balloons, at 17320 S. Delia, sells 5 to 10 rats a year in the Chicago area and about 100 nationwide, mostly on the East Coast. They range from 6 to 25 feet tall and cost from $2,250 to $8,350.

Scabby is most popular among the building and construction trade unions, but he has also made appearances at the Congress Hotel strike in downtown Chicago and at a Glenview hotel on Easter Sunday. A few years ago, the balloon rat stood alongside the Chicago Federation of Musicians in a protest at the Royal George Theatre. The show at the time was "Rat Pack."

Though Scabby is still relatively new to the labor movement, the message he brings to the picket line is no different than earlier traditions, says Leon Fink, a labor historian and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"It's a carnivalesque tactic," he said. "It does attract attention, and it inevitably casts a negative image over the employer that touched off the protest."

Source: Chicago Sun-Times