Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 38.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

17 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

to generate conflicting results about the contours of the ven-
erated  right  to  strike,  which,  ironically,  was  the  primary 
concern that motivated Congress to create the Board in the
first place. 

IV 
For what it’s worth, even if the majority’s approach to de-
ciding the Garmon question were the correct one, the ma-
jority  misapplies  the  reasonable-precautions  principle  to
the allegations here in a manner that threatens to impinge
on the right to strike and on the orderly development of la-
bor law. 

A 
1 

A strike, by definition, is a “concerted stoppage of work 
by  employees,”  or  “any  concerted  slowdown  or  other  con-
certed  interruption  of  operations  by  employees.”  §142(2).
When employees stop working, production may halt, deliv-
eries may be delayed, and services may be canceled.  At the 
risk  of  stating  the  obvious,  this  means  that  the  workers’ 
right to strike inherently includes the right to impose eco-
nomic harm on their employer. 

Congress was well aware that organized labor’s exercise 
of the right to strike risks harm to an employer’s economic
interests.  See §151; NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 
221, 234 (1963) (Congress’s protection of the right to strike
reflects its understanding that strikes are authorized “eco-
nomic weapon[s]”).  Yet, Congress protected that right any-
way.  In fact, the threat of economic harm posed by the right 
to strike is a feature, not a bug, of the NLRA.  The potential
pain of a work stoppage is a powerful tool, and one that un-
questionably advances Congress’s codified goal of achieving 
“equality of bargaining power between employers and em-
ployees.”  §151.  Unions leverage a strike’s economic harm 
(or the threat of it) into bargaining power, and then wield