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“The Supreme Court ruled Thursday against unionized drivers who walked off the job with their trucks full of wet concrete… Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, said the union failed to take reasonable precautions to protect the company’s concrete when the drivers went on strike. Barrett wrote that the drivers for Washington state-based Glacier Northwest quit work suddenly, putting the company’s property in ‘foreseeable and imminent danger.’… The decision united liberal and conservative justices in labor’s latest loss at the high court. The lone dissenter in the case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the ruling would hinder the development of labor law and ‘erode the right to strike.’” AP News
The right supports the decision, arguing that the union deliberately attempted to cause property damage.
“The case involved striking Teamsters truckers for a concrete-mixing company who deliberately walked off the job after their trucks had been loaded with custom-mixed concrete. If the concrete hardened before delivery, it was useless; if it hardened inside the trucks, the trucks would be damaged, too. Quick unloading by non-striking employees saved the trucks, but the day’s haul of concrete was lost…
“The Court did not adopt a per se rule against striking when perishable products might be lost, or against striking during the workday without advance notice, but focused on the deliberate sabotage involved in the timing of this strike: ‘Given the lifespan of wet concrete, Glacier could not batch it until a truck was ready to take it. So by reporting for duty and pretending as if they would deliver the concrete, the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product. Then, they waited to walk off the job until the concrete was mixed and poured in the trucks. In so doing, they not only destroyed the concrete but also put Glacier’s trucks in harm’s way.’…
“Finally, the Court scoffed at the Teamsters’ defense that they at least brought the trucks back: ‘Refraining from stealing an employer’s vehicles does not demonstrate that one took reasonable precautions to protect them.’”
Dan McLaughlin, National Review
“The lonely dissenter is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wants the courts to pause their review so that the National Labor Relations Board can first consider the dispute. According to the NLRB’s general counsel, Justice Jackson says, the argument that the strike was protected ‘appears to have merit.’…
“That’s a testament to what the NLRB lets unions get away with. In its 2016 Cooper Tire decision, the board said picketing Ohio tire workers couldn’t be punished by the company for yelling racist remarks at replacement staff, including: ‘Go back to Africa, you bunch of —ing losers!’ That legal interpretation was reversed under President Trump, but the Biden Administration has now reversed the reversal. Bigotry is apparently fine as long as it’s unionized. Union membership in the private economy keeps dropping, with no end in sight, and this type of behavior is part of the story.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“The Court got it right. But this case is a perfect illustration of the National Labor Relations Act’s pro-union bias. Unions have so many special privileges under the law that it wasn’t immediately obvious that they lack the legal protection to break stuff because they’re mad, and the nation’s highest court had to waste its time to restore common sense.”
Dominic Pino, National Review
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it is inconsistent with precedent and weakens the power of unions.
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it is inconsistent with precedent and weakens the power of unions.
“On the one hand, one line of cases establishes that a union has a legal right to strike even if that strike will lead to the destruction of perishable goods. A decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — a kind of quasi-court that hears disputes between unions and employers — sided with milk truck drivers who struck, even though their strike risked spoiling the milk before it was delivered to customers…
“On the other hand, there are some cases establishing that striking workers cannot walk off the job at a time that could result in great damage to their employer’s equipment… Imagine a company much like Glacier Northwest, except that this company is so busy that it always has at least one truck full of wet concrete being delivered to a client. At what point are this union’s workers allowed to strike? And, if they do strike, what are the precise precautions the union must take in order to protect the employer’s trucks?”
Ian Millhiser, Vox
“The court’s new approach is inconsistent with the approach taken for more than half a century. In 1959, in San Diego Building Trades Council vs. Garmon, the Supreme Court ruled that state court proceedings should be paused to allow the National Labor Relations Board to determine whether the union’s conduct was, or was arguably, protected or prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act…
“This approach makes sense because it allows an expert federal agency, vested with authority by Congress, to make the threshold determination of whether the strike is protected or prohibited by federal law… Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 precisely to prevent courts from deciding in this ad hoc way, based on untested employer allegations, that strikes violate some law.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times
“Strikes have been on the rise since 2018, with the Writers Guild of America and educators in Oakland and Los Angeles only the most recent groups of workers leading the charge. The corporate class has taken note, and prepared its counterattack, teeing up Glacier in the hope that the court could use it as a pretext to undermine bedrock principles of American labor law…
“Only because this particular case was overly complex—putting layers of procedural considerations between the question at hand and [Justice] Alito and company’s lust to gut the right to strike—were we spared a broad and horrific ruling. For the moment. But workers will need to double down on using every step of negotiations to build the ability to wage big, smart, strong, and durable strikes.”
Jane McAlevey, The Nation
A libertarian's take
“Both Justice Jackson in dissent, and Justice Clarence Thomas in concurrence, draw attention to a curious 1959 Court precedent called San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon that has the effect of giving the NLRB a benefit of the doubt that ordinary federal agencies don’t get. While federal law generally preempts state law when the two conflict, in Garmon the Court ruled the NLRA preempts state law if the two even arguably conflict—a sort of super‐deference. [Justice] Jackson makes the most of this as a reason to defer to the Board, and writes at length about how Congress has chosen to entrust broad power to the Board given its specialized expertise…
“I have to say that the NLRB—a highly polarized panel that swings hard from one side to the other after the White House changes hands—would be one of my very last picks if I were asked to name an impartial federal agency guided by specialized expertise. Justice Thomas uses his concurrence to ask whether the odd Garmon preemption rule really makes sense, or should at some point be reconsidered by the Court. That’s a good question.”
Walter Olson, CATO Institute
