Seattle employer can sue workers over 2017 strike, U.S. Supreme Court rules

The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday that a Seattle company has the right to sue the union representing its employees for damages arising from a 2017 strike. The company, Glacier NW, sued the Teamsters Local 174 after drivers walked off the job with concrete still spinning in their trucks.

Typically, disputes like this would be adjudicated by the National Labor Relations Board, but the new ruling allows the lawsuit to move forward through the courts. Unions fear the ruling paves the way for employers to sue whenever they lose money due to a strike, which is often the objective of workers seeking to gain leverage in negotiations.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Glacier NW, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The ruling overturns a decision by the Washington State Supreme Court, which initially sided with the Teamsters. Glacier NW appealed that decision, claiming the right to strike does not apply if the union didn’t take sufficient precautions to protect the equipment from “imminent danger.”

“The Union’s choice to call a strike after its drivers had loaded a large amount of wet concrete into Glacier’s delivery trucks strongly suggests that it failed to take reasonable precautions to avoid foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent harm to Glacier’s property,” the justices said in their ruling.

Teamsters says drivers did make an effort to protect the trucks by leaving the mixers rotating.

Labor groups condemned the ruling on Thursday, claiming it hamstrings a critical tool in the organizing toolkit.

“The ability to strike has been on the books for nearly 100 years, and it’s no coincidence that this ruling is coming at a time when workers across the country are fed up and exercising their rights more and more,” said Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien in a statement. “Make no mistake — this ruling has everything to do with giving companies more power to hobble workers if any attempt is made to fight back against a growing system of corruption.”

Update notice, Thursday, 6/1/2023: A previous version of this story reported MLK Labor, which represents more than 150 unions throughout King County would hold a press conference at Glacier NW to discuss the ruling. However, KUOW learned that the press conference will no longer take place.