Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. Teamsters
The Supreme Court ruled that a concrete company may sue its truck drivers' union in state court for property damage caused during a strike, finding that federal labor law did not shield the union's conduct.
The decision makes clear that the federal law protecting the right to strike does not cover situations where a union deliberately engineers a work stoppage to destroy an employer's property or put its equipment in imminent danger.
“Indeed, far from taking reasonable precautions to mitigate foreseeable danger to Glacier's property, the Union executed the strike in a manner designed to compromise the safety of Glacier's trucks and destroy its concrete.”
The majority's core finding that the union's conduct went beyond protected strike activity.
How it got here: The Washington state trial court dismissed Glacier's claims on preemption grounds; an intermediate appeals court reversed; the Washington Supreme Court reinstated the dismissal; Glacier asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Glacier Northwest, a concrete company in Washington State, depends on its drivers to deliver freshly mixed concrete before it hardens. After contract negotiations with the drivers' union broke down, the union called a strike on a morning when trucks were already fully loaded with wet concrete. Drivers returned their loads to Glacier's yard, some abandoning their trucks without a word, forcing Glacier into an emergency five-hour scramble to unload and dispose of the concrete. All of it hardened and became useless. Glacier sued the union for intentionally destroying its property.
The question before the Court
Can states hold a union legally responsible for property damage when striking workers walk off the job in a way that foreseeably destroys their employer's perishable product and endangers its equipment?
The Court's answer
No — federal labor law did not block Glacier's state-court lawsuit against the union.
The National Labor Relations Act protects the right to strike, but that protection has limits. Under a longstanding rule that both sides accepted, striking workers must take reasonable precautions to protect their employer's property from foreseeable, imminent danger caused by a sudden work stoppage. The union knew concrete is perishable and can permanently damage trucks if it hardens inside their drums. Yet it called the strike at the worst possible moment — when trucks were already loaded with wet concrete — and some drivers abandoned their trucks without telling anyone. Far from simply failing to take reasonable precautions, the Court concluded, the union appeared to have engineered the strike to maximize harm to Glacier's concrete and equipment. Because federal law does not arguably protect such conduct, the rule that ordinarily requires courts to pause lawsuits and defer to the National Labor Relations Board — known as Garmon preemption — did not apply here.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Unions must be careful about the timing and manner of strikes in industries where a sudden work stoppage could immediately damage an employer's equipment or destroy perishable materials. If a union's strategy appears designed to cause property damage — rather than simply withdraw labor — state courts can hear damage claims, and federal labor law will not automatically block those lawsuits.
What changes now
The case returns to Washington state courts, which can now hear Glacier's claims for conversion and trespass to chattels. However, the Court left open one significant question: after the Washington Supreme Court ruled, the NLRB's General Counsel filed a separate complaint alleging Glacier itself retaliated against strikers. The lower courts must decide on remand whether that pending Board proceeding requires them to pause the state-court litigation under Garmon before proceeding.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly declined to address whether the NLRB General Counsel's pending complaint — concluding the union's strike conduct was protected by federal law — requires state courts to pause or dismiss Glacier's lawsuit. That question was left open for the lower courts on remand and could still result in the case being suspended.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed the state-court claims should proceed but wrote separately to criticize the Garmon preemption doctrine as 'unusual' and inconsistent with how federal law normally displaces state law. He argued that Garmon improperly lets the NLRB's own precedents — rather than the statutory text — determine when state courts lose jurisdiction. He urged the Court to reconsider the doctrine in a future case, focusing instead on whether federal and state law are in logical contradiction.
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed with the outcome but would have resolved the case on simpler, more established grounds. The Court has long held that the NLRA does not protect workers who intentionally destroy or seize an employer's property — a rule from NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. (1939). Because Glacier alleged the union acted with the purpose of destroying its property, no nuanced 'reasonable precautions' analysis was needed; the conduct was plainly outside NLRA protection.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson argued the majority acted prematurely. After the Washington Supreme Court ruled, the NLRB's General Counsel filed a complaint concluding the union's strike conduct was federally protected — a step that, in her view, automatically triggers Garmon's requirement that courts stand aside and let the Board rule first. She also argued the majority improperly applied the Board's fact-intensive 'reasonable precautions' precedents — work Congress assigned to the Board, not courts — and that the ruling threatens to erode the right to strike by generating conflicting court decisions on what the NLRA protects.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied Garmon preemption — a doctrine from a 1959 Supreme Court decision (San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon) holding that states cannot regulate conduct that federal labor law even 'arguably' protects. But the party claiming that protection bears the burden of showing the law arguably covers the conduct; a bare assertion isn't enough.
- Both sides agreed on a key limitation: the National Labor Relations Act does not protect strikers who fail to take 'reasonable precautions' to shield their employer's property from foreseeable, imminent, and aggravated danger caused by suddenly stopping work. This principle, developed by the National Labor Relations Board, was the agreed-upon test.
- The Court applied that test to the facts alleged: the union knew wet concrete is highly perishable and will permanently damage ready-mix trucks if it hardens in their drums, yet it called the strike at exactly the moment when trucks were loaded and deliveries were underway — making harm to both the concrete and the trucks foreseeable and serious.
- The Court found the union not only failed to take even minimal precautions — such as calling the strike before trucks were loaded, alerting Glacier that loaded trucks had been abandoned, or directing drivers to follow Glacier's instructions — but appeared to have timed the strike specifically to engineer those harmful outcomes.
- Because the union's conduct went well beyond simply exercising the right to stop working, and instead affirmatively put Glacier's property at risk, the NLRA did not arguably protect it. Without arguable protection, Garmon preemption did not apply, and Washington state courts were free to hear Glacier's tort claims.