Supreme Court Delivers Brutal Blow to Unions with 8-1 Ruling

The only Justice to dissent was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, who said the decision, “risks erosion of the right to strike.”

She said that by making the decision to side with the company the court “inserts itself into this conflict, proceeding to opine on the propriety of the union’s strike activity.”

“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 said.

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley explained the decision in a thread on Twitter.

“The first decision is out. It is Glacier NW v. International Brotherhood,” he said. “The Washington Supreme Court is reversed in an opinion by Justice Barrett. Only Justice Jackson dissented with the court ruling that federal law does not preempt a company’s state law tort claims against a union when a strike causes damage to the company’s property.”

“Glacier was the big ticket case today. The ruling against unions could prove something of a game changer. The nearly unanimous court ruled that ‘the Union did not take reasonable precautions to protect Glacier’s property from imminent danger resulting from the drivers’ sudden cessation of work,’” he said in another thread.