Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 44

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

23 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

job.7 

Where  I  disagree  with  the  majority  is  the  conclusion  it 
draws from the fact that the batched concrete also risked 
harm to the drivers’ trucks, at least as alleged in Glacier’s
complaint.  The majority repeatedly ties the loss of the con-
crete—in  particular,  the  risk  that  it  would  harden  in  the 
trucks—to  the alleged risk of harm to the delivery trucks
themselves.8  But, to me, the alleged risk of harm to Glac-
ier’s  trucks  involves  a  relatively  complex  factual  analysis 
under the Board’s reasonable-precautions principle.

Glacier alleges that, “[o]nce at rest, concrete begins hard-
ening immediately, and depending on the mix can begin to 
set within 20 to 30 minutes.”  Id., at 8.  Its complaint also
asserts that “[i]f batched concrete remains in the revolving
drum of the ready-mix truck beyond its useful life span, the 
batched  concrete  is  certain  or  substantially  certain  to 

—————— 

7 JUSTICE ALITO, relying on the rule from NLRB v. Fansteel Metallur-
gical Corp., 306 U. S. 240 (1939), gleans more from the loss of concrete 
than either the majority or I do.  He concludes that the NLRA’s right to 
strike does not protect the drivers’ alleged conduct because Glacier has 
alleged that the drivers purposefully caused the batched concrete to be 
destroyed.  In my view, that approach fails to appreciate the distinction 
Fansteel drew between purposefully but peacefully stopping work (and 
the economic consequences that flow from that decision), which is pro-
tected, and taking subsequent, affirmative steps of violence or property 
seizure, which is unprotected.  To be sure, Fansteel would have rendered 
the drivers’ actions here patently unprotected if they had taken the af-
firmative steps of stealing the trucks, slashing the trucks’ tires, or dump-
ing out the concrete after they went on strike.  But nothing like that is 
alleged in Glacier’s complaint. 

8 See,  e.g.,  ante,  at  8  (“[T]he  Union  executed  the  strike  in  a  manner 
designed to compromise the safety of Glacier’s trucks and destroy its con-
crete”);  ante,  at  10  (“[The  drivers]  not  only  destroyed  the  concrete  but 
also  put  Glacier’s  trucks  in  harm’s  way.   This  case  therefore  involves 
much more than ‘a work stoppage at a time when the loss of perishable 
products is foreseeable’ ”); ante, at 12 (“The Union’s actions not only re-
sulted  in  the  destruction  of  all  the concrete  Glacier  had  prepared  that 
day;  they  also  posed  a  risk  of  foreseeable,  aggravated,  and  imminent 
harm to Glacier’s trucks”).