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Page Number: 17

2 

GLACIER NORTHWEST, INC. v. TEAMSTERS 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

determined that, “[w]hen an activity is arguably subject to 
§7 or §8 of the Act” (which, respectively, concern employees’ 
right to engage in concerted activity and unfair labor prac-
tices), “the States as well as the federal courts must defer
to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations 
Board  [(NLRB  or  Board)].”  359  U. S.,  at  245.    The  Court 
went on to explain that this prophylactic rule of pre-emp-
tion  may  apply  even  to  state-court  claims  arising  under 
state private law (rather than the NLRA or a comparable 
state regulatory scheme) and even to claims seeking reme-
dies not available from the Board.  Id., at 246–248.*  Nor, 
under the Court’s rule, is the State’s power to act restored
if the NLRB “fail[s] to determine the status of the disputed
conduct by declining to assert jurisdiction, or by refusal . . . 
to file a charge; or by adopting some other disposition which 
does  not  define  the  nature  of  the  activity  with  unclouded 
legal significance.”  Id., at 245–246. 

Garmon acknowledged that the NLRA’s pre-emption im-
plications “ ‘are of a Delphic nature,’ ” leaving the States’ re-
sidual power in a “ ‘penumbral area [that] can be rendered 
progressively clear only by the course of litigation.’ ”  Id., at 
240–241  (quoting  Machinists  v.  Gonzales,  356  U. S.  617, 
619  (1958);  Weber  v.  Anheuser-Busch,  Inc.,  348  U. S.  468, 
480–481  (1955)).    It  thus  emphasized  that  “Congress  has 
entrusted administration of the labor policy for the Nation
to a centralized administrative agency,” making it “essen-
tial  to  the  administration  of  the Act”  that  determinations 
about protected and prohibited conduct “be left in the first 

—————— 

*Nonetheless, and motivated by “due regard for the presuppositions of
our  embracing  federal  system,”  Garmon  carved  out  two  areas  of  pre-
sumptive  state  control:  (1)  “where  the  activity  regulated  was  a  merely
peripheral concern of the [NLRA as amended],” and (2) where it “touched 
interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the
absence of compelling congressional direction, [the Court] could not infer 
that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act.”  359 U. S., at 
243–244.