On June 1, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Washington concrete company could sue a union in state court for destroying its product when the union called a strike as soon as the company’s trucks were loaded with wet concrete and dispatched to deliver it. At least 16 drivers reversed course and returned to the company’s facility with fully loaded trucks. Among those drivers, 7 notified company representatives, but at least 9 simply walked away without informing anyone.
Company Faces Crisis as Product Hardens in Truck Drums.
Rotating concrete in the drum of a truck is only a temporary measure to keep it from hardening. The trucks would have been ruined if the concrete had been left in the drums. Faced with a crisis as the concrete began to harden with no place to put it, company management scrambled to find a solution. Simply dumping the concrete wasn’t an option because of environmental regulations. The company quickly built forms for the trucks to pour the concrete into. As a result, the company saved the trucks but lost all of the concrete product it had mixed that day.
Union's Actions Deemed Deliberate Property Damage
The union argued that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protected the workers’ right to strike and preempted (took precedence over) state law allowing lawsuits for destruction of property. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. The Court said the union’s actions were timed not merely to be disruptive, but to deliberately damage the company’s valuable property. Although the Court acknowledged that this union had no obligation to give advance warning of its intent to strike, it nonetheless had a duty “to take reasonable precautions to avoid foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent harm” to the company’s property (Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. Teamsters, US, June 2023).
Tips: Most non-management employees, regardless of union representation, have a right to band together and walk off the job to protest wages, hours, and working conditions. The Supreme Court’s ruling provides welcome limits on this right. If you are faced with a workplace walkout, address any imminent needs to protect people and property, and contact your Vigilant Law Group employment attorney for advice on the employment law aspects of dealing with the strike.
