The Glacier v. Teamsters ruling isn’t as bad as I feared from this Court. The ruling, while allowing for suits in state court, emphasizes the peculiar facts of this case and appears to continue to protect strikes that are timed to harm the employer. No strike is worth its salt if it can’t be timed to hurt the employer. Nothing in this opinion has changed that.

The other concern from this case was that this Court would overturn the doctrine of preemption as it relates to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) jurisdiction. Hostile courts in “right to work” states would hit unions for damages. This decision didn’t do this, though Justice Jackson’s view of preemption preserving NLRB primary jurisdiction at all stages was a better position. It wasn’t as bad as expected.

William B. Gould IV is Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Stanford Law School. A prolific scholar of labor and discrimination law, Gould has been an influential voice in worker–management relations for more than fifty years and served as Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB, 1994–98) and subsequently Chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (2014-2017). Professor Gould has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1970. As NLRB Chairman, he played a critical role in bringing the 1994–95 baseball strike to its conclusion and has arbitrated and mediated more than three hundred labor disputes, including the 1992 and 1993 salary disputes between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee. He served as Secretary, Labor and Employment Law Section, American Bar Association (1980-81) as well as Independent Monitor for FirstGroup America, addressing freedom-of-association complaints (2008–10). Shortly after the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Professor Gould served as a Consultant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1966-67) providing recommendations on seniority disputes and conciliation procedures and in 1967 he was a member of the very first Fact Finding Board established under the New York Taylor Law. Gould also served as Special Advisor to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on project labor agreements (2011–12) and as Independent Reviewer on Equal Employment Opportunity for the Mayor of San Francisco (2020-21). A critically acclaimed author of 11 books and more than sixty law review articles, Professor Gould is the recipient of five honorary doctorates for his significant contributions to the fields of labor law and labor relations.