U.S. High Court: Striking Unions Can Be Sued For Damaging Company Assets

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a cement mixing company that seeks to bypass federal labor law and sue a union in state court for the destruction of property caused by striking workers.

Photo Insert: Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that 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.”

The court said the dispute could continue in state court for now, a move that could chill workers’ decisions to strike for fear that unions would now have to face potentially costly litigation in state court for misconduct during federally protected strikes, Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole reported for CNN.

The union argued that the case should be handled by an independent federal agency that investigates allegations of wrongdoing and that the union should not have to face costly state litigation.

The case had been closely watched by supporters of unions who have witnessed the conservative majority in recent years chip away at their power.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority that included two of the court’s liberal members, said that the Washington state Supreme Court had been too dismissive of arguments made by the business that it should be able to move forward in state court with a claim of intentional destruction of property.

She pointed particularly to the fact striking workers “abandoned fully loaded trucks” of cement “without telling anyone,” a move that could have destroyed the trucks had they not been unloaded in time by non-striking workers at the company, Glacier Northwest.

Barrett said that 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.”

Justice Ketanji Jackson dissented, saying “In my view, doing that places a significant burden on the employees' exercise of their statutory right to strike, unjustifiably undermining Congress’s intent… workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master.”

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