The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Jan. 10 for a case that could shed light on when workers can strike.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) gives workers the right to strike, but those protections don't apply if workers fail to take reasonable precautions to avoid foreseeable, imminent damage to the employer's property, such as the building, equipment or products.
Glacier Northwest, a building material company in Seattle, sued its employees' union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, after workers started a strike when concrete was scheduled to be batched and delivered. The company claimed the striking workers intentionally sabotaged its business operations and property because they waited until the concrete was loaded into the trucks to strike.
The union argued that the state-law claims were preempted under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon. In that case, the court found that NLRA preempts some state law when the conduct is arguably protected or arguably prohibited. In Glacier Northwest's case, a Washington State trial court agreed that the state law against intentional property destruction was preempted because the damage did not involve vandalism or violence. The Washington Court of Appeals agreed, stating that the strike was arguably protected as a legitimate bargaining tactic.
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