On my way to work, I pass by a giant inflatable rat inflated by a gas motor that's hauled around by a truck. It's rather annoying when its tail gets loose and covers the sidewalk, as can happen on windy days when it's not tied down appropriately. It's probably 10 or 12 feet tall, at least, and the tail is maybe 12 feet long or longer. (3 feet is about one meter for those in metric land).
It's parked there because one of the buildings under construction here didn't use the right amount of union labor, so there's always a rat present. Walk around and you'll see this same rat in different places; they've got a number of them. They've also got some rather impressive pigs and fat cats.
This is the city that couldn't get rid of two operators per train on the L, even though technically they could more or less get by with zero (the trains mostly drive themselves on that line; the operator, to my understanding, just has to keep acknowledging that the train should proceed).
Why?
The unions protested and won, citing hitherto unknown safety reasons that should be plaguing cities like Madrid, Barcelona, London, Paris, Washington D.C., etc. due to their lack of two people. Doubly so for those lines (including the AirTrain to JFK in NYC) that do not have operators at all...