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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28426 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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last week, SCOTUS ruled on a case from 2017 about whether teamsters were allowed to walk off the job, leaving their trucks with drying cement.

Drivers showed up to work on strike day as normal. Those with early routes had their trucks filled with cement and went out to make deliveries. But after the final negotiations with the company broke down, the drivers went on strike. Those out on routes were told by the union to drive their trucks back to the company and leave them running so the cement wouldn’t immediately harden, which the drivers did. Management couldn’t decant the cement or make all of the deliveries in time, and some of the cement hardened and had to be destroyed.

Unlike, say, abortion rights, the right to strike is protected under federal law—specifically, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). That law normally supersedes (lawyers use the word “preempts”) state tort claims like the one filed by Glacier, but there are edge cases. The law requires striking employees to take “reasonable precautions” to make sure that their employers’ property is not damaged, and the law clearly prohibits striking employees from taking active measures to damage or vandalize property. A striking UPS driver could not, for instance, drive their truck into the middle of Madison Avenue, shout “gifts from Jeff Bezos,” and walk away. But a striking driver could refuse to make deliveries and, if those packages contained perishables that spoiled, the strikers wouldn’t be liable under the NLRA, even if management wanted to lodge a state tort claim against them.

SCOTUS ruled 8-1 against the strikers, with the newest justice KBJ the sole voice opposed. this article from the cato institute sides with them. there's also a bunch of legal stuff about whether the courts should even get to rule on this instead of the NLRB.

As other pointed out the issue wasn't about the strike per-se but rather whether the Union had deliberately damaged equipment and if so whether that damage was protected speech. The ruling effectively holds that the Union is liable for any damage they might of caused and that such liability is not a violation of the first amendment, or existing labor protections. IE while the employer is prohibited from "retaliating" against participants in a strike, holding people liable for damage they cause is not "retaliation" as even outside the context of a strike they would still be liable.

As other pointed out the issue wasn't about the strike per-se but rather whether the Union had deliberately damaged equipment and if so whether that damage was protected speech.

To be more precise, whether the state tort to recover damages was implicitly precluded by federal law. This implicates the NLRB's statutory right to strike (technically, "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,") rather than direct First Amendment principles; afaik, neither the SCOTUS question nor the lower court opinion rested on speech matters.

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