SCOTUS to unions, 8-1: You break it, you bought it
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that federal labor law did not protect a union from potential liability for damage that arose during a strike, and that a state court should resolve questions of liability.
The majority found that if accusations by an employer are true, actions during a strike by a local Teamsters union were not even arguably protected by federal law because the union took “affirmative steps to endanger” the employer’s property “rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk.” It asked the state court to decide the merits of the accusations.
The opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Three conservative justices backed more sweeping concurring opinions. A single justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
At issue was a job action by Teamsters at a large cement production and delivery company, which went on strike over their expired bargaining agreement. The union called for a strike in the middle of the day, even though the company had prepared a large amount of concrete for delivery that day, and that refusing to deliver it would not just ruin the product but also damage the vehicles. Sure enough, 16 drivers walked off the job. Glacier Northwest managed to get the concrete out of the trucks before they got seriously damaged, but their production that day was a total loss.
Glacier Northwest wants the Teamsters to reimburse them for the loss. The Teamsters argued that the NLRA immunizes them from such claims in state court and in federal court as well. Nope, writes Amy Coney Barrett for the 8-justice majority. The NRLA gives workers the right to strike but not immunity from damage they cause, especially when it’s clearly deliberate:
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