The Supreme Court’s Damper on the Right to Strike
The Supreme Court’s Damper on the Right to Strike
In a near-unanimous opinion, the Justices made it easier for employers to sue labor unions for damages caused by a work stoppage.
I don't get all the hype over this case.
The striking workers, as I understand, were concrete truck drivers. When they walked off, they left the trucks loaded up with concrete to purposely destroy the trucks.
Yeah, news flash, when warehouse workers go on strike they aren't allowed to burn down the warehouse as they walk out.
I'm a huge union supporter, and focus most of my practice on representing workers against their employers, but this was criminal conduct.
Almost everyone agrees that what the union did was wrong. But the problem is how the court seems to have (according to some people) diminished the role of NLRB, which is the appropriate forum for resolving such disputes. From the article:
They didn’t obviously overturn National Labor Relations Board precedent, but it casts a very jaundiced eye on the interplay between the Board and the courts
Also, I am not sure this was criminal conduct. Any sources for that? In any case, the court's ruling was about the tort lawsuit and not about any criminal conduct. The saving grace for the opinion was that it was quite fact specific and in other contexts workers can be more careful and avoid being sued (unless the court adopts the Thomas-Gorsuch concurrence, in which case they are screwed).