Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

10 

GLACIER NORTHWEST, INC. v. TEAMSTERS 

Opinion of the Court 

the employer’s perishable products would spoil.  But given
the lifespan of wet concrete, Glacier could not batch it until 
a truck was ready to take it.  So by reporting for duty and 
pretending as if they would deliver the concrete, the drivers 
prompted the creation of the perishable product.  Then, they
waited to walk off the job until the concrete was mixed and
poured in the trucks.  In so doing, they not only destroyed 
the  concrete  but  also  put  Glacier’s  trucks  in  harm’s  way.
This case therefore involves much more than “a work stop-
page at a time when the loss of perishable products is fore-
seeable.”  Brief for Respondent 22.

Third, the Union maintains that the timing of the strike
and Glacier’s lack of notice cannot render the drivers’ con-
duct unprotected.  Id., at 26–28.  It argues that workers are
not  required  to  time  their  strikes  to  minimize  economic
harm to their employer, see Lumbee Farms, 285 N. L. R. B., 
at 506, and that the NLRA does not impose a legal require-
ment that workers give specific notice of a strike’s timing, 
see Columbia Portland Cement Co. v. NLRB, 915 F. 2d 253, 
257 (CA6 1990).

We agree that the Union’s decision to initiate the strike
during the workday and failure to give Glacier specific no-
tice do not themselves render its conduct unprotected.  Still, 
they  are  relevant  considerations  in  evaluating  whether
strikers  took  reasonable  precautions,  whether  harm  to 
property was imminent, and whether that danger was fore-
seeable.   See  International  Protective  Services,  Inc.,  339 
N. L. R. B. 701, 702–703 (2003) (attempt “ ‘to capitalize on
the  element  of  surprise’ ”  stemming  from  a  lack  of  notice
weighed in favor of concluding that a union failed to take 
reasonable  precautions). 
In  this  instance,  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 precau-
tions to avoid foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent harm 
to Glacier’s property.