One Supreme Court Justice Dissents in Key Union Case

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter in an 8–1 ruling that ruled in favor of a concrete company that sought to revive a lawsuit against one of the largest unions in the United States.

Thursday’s decision, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, allows (pdf) a Washington state-based firm, Glacier Northwest, can go ahead with a lawsuit against the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters in a court over a 2017 strike where Teamster drivers walked off the job and allowed cement to go bad in their trucks.

But Jackson issued a dissent that disagreed with Barrett and the majority opinion, writing that the union’s “conduct is at least arguably protected by the NLRA,” the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. “But instead of modestly standing down, the majority eagerly inserts itself into this conflict, proceeding to opine on the propriety of the union’s strike activity based on the facts alleged in the employer’s state-court complaint,” Jackson said.

She continued: “Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master.”

The National Labor Relations Board, she wrote, issued a complaint after a Washington state court ruling and accused the firm of unfair practices. In 2012, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the teamsters and said that the loss of materials during the strike was “incidental to a strike arguably protected by federal law.” The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday effectively reverses that lower court order.

The Supreme Court “majority also misapplies the Board’s cases in a manner that threatens to impede both the Board’s uniform development of labor law and erode the right to strike,” Jackson said, adding that the high court has “no business delving into this particular labor dispute at this time.”

Jackson further chastised the majority’s decision as a “misguided foray underscores the wisdom of Congress’s decision to create an agency that is uniquely positioned to evaluate the facts and apply the law in cases such as this one.” Adding, “This case is Exhibit A as to why the board—and not the courts—should ordinarily take the first crack at resolving contentious, fact-bound labor disputes of this nature,” she dissented.

Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh joined Barrett’s opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch agreed but said they would have gone further in their reasoning.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a separate opinion in the Washington state case that the federal National Labor Relations Act protects the right to strike, but with limits. He said that it “does not protect striking employees who engage in the type of conduct alleged here.”

This case stemmed from contract negotiations in 2017 between Glacier Northwest and the local teamsters union representing the drivers. When negotiations broke down, the union called for a strike. Drivers walked off the job while their trucks were full of concrete, which must be used quickly and can damage the trucks if it’s not.

Teamsters march on May Day in Los Angeles on May 1, 2018. (David McNew/Getty Images)

Glacier says the union timed the strike to create chaos and inflict damage. Glacier not only had to dump the concrete but also pay for the wasted concrete to be broken up and hauled away.

Barrett wrote that because the union did not take reasonable precautions to protect Glacier’s property, the trial court was wrong to think federal law required dismissing the lawsuit. 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,” Barrett wrote.

Lawyers for the union had said that in this case the drivers were instructed to be conscientious when they walked off the job, to bring their full trucks back to Glacier’s facility, and to leave the trucks’ mixing drums spinning so that the concrete would not immediately begin to harden.

Barrett wrote that their argument wasn’t good enough. “That the drivers returned the trucks to Glacier’s facility does not do much for the Union—refraining from stealing an employer’s vehicles does not demonstrate that one took reasonable precautions to protect them,” she wrote.

“The Union’s actions not only resulted in the destruction of all the concrete Glacier had prepared that day; they also posed a risk of foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent harm to Glacier’s trucks,” Barrett wrote. “Because the Union took affirmative steps to endanger Glacier’s property rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk, the NLRA does not arguably protect its conduct.”

Darin Dalmat, a lawyer for the teamsters union, said in a statement that the group is disappointed. However, the lawyer said that the court’s decision will not “stop workers from exercising their federally protected rights to strike.”

And Glacier, in a statement Thursday, said that the Supreme Court ruling “vindicates the longstanding principle that federal law does not shield labor unions” when members “intentionally destroy an employer’s property.”

“Our client is entitled to just compensation for its property that the union intentionally destroyed,” the firm said in a statement to news outlets.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.