In the white-knuckle pastime of Supreme Court watching, one case this term received comparatively little attention. Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local No. 174, in which a concrete company sued the labor union representing its drivers for damages arising from a strike, seemed only to be discussed, with considerable dread, in the narrow world of labor.
The case concerned the scope of the drivers’ right to strike and the related issue of who should resolve disputes about actions that are “arguably protected” by that right: state courts or the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees organizing in the private sector. Last week, the Justices ruled against the Teamsters, by a vote of 8–1. (The sole dissenter was the newest Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.) The majority decision, delivered by Justice Barrett, is modest and fact-specific—and is thus more a signal than a sea change. Still, it raises an ominous question for the labor movement: How important a tactic will the strike continue to be?
First, the facts. In 2017, truck drivers with Local 174 of the Teamsters union, in Seattle, were stalled in their contract talks with a concrete company called Glacier Northwest. Labor relations in the industry were already fraught, and a majority of the union’s members approved a strike. The decision of when, exactly, to begin the strike was left to the officers of the union. They pencilled in a date in mid-August, but then a high-volume mat pour—to create the concrete slab of a commercial building’s foundation—appeared on that day’s schedule. The strike was moved to the day before the mat pour, when smaller deliveries were on the calendar. The idea was to cause a major disruption but not inflict excessive harm, according to the Teamsters. No advance notice was given to union members.
When the drivers on shift received word from union headquarters, some were in the middle of their deliveries. They drove back to Glacier Northwest and parked their trucks. It wasn’t uncommon for workers to finish a job and return with some leftover product, but this time sixteen trucks had full or nearly full tanks of freshly mixed concrete. The drivers of these........