Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

24 

GLACIER NORTHWEST, INC. v. TEAMSTERS 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

harden in the revolving drum and cause significant damage 
to the concrete ready-mix truck.”  Id., at 9.  But Glacier’s 
own  submissions  in  Washington  state  court  suggest  that 
the Union instructed the drivers to return their trucks to 
Glacier’s yard after the strike began and to keep the ready-
mix trucks running.  See id., at 34, 77.  Glacier’s submis-
sions also suggest that those precautions actually provided
the  company’s  managers  and  nonstriking  employees  with
sufficient time to decide how to address the situation to pre-
vent any harm to the trucks.  See id., at 13, 72, 77, 82–83. 
Was  any  risk  of  harm  to  the  trucks  here  “imminent,”
given the allegation that the Union instructed the drivers
to keep the trucks running?  Is the risk of concrete harden-
ing in a delivery truck “aggravated,” in the way Marshall 
Car Wheel contemplates?  Was returning the trucks to the 
employer’s premises and leaving them running a sufficient 
“reasonable” precaution, because it gave the employer suf-
ficient time to address any risk of harm?  Making the call 
about  whether  the  NLRA  protects  the  Union’s  conduct 
raises these questions and others.  Importantly, these kinds 
of questions not only involve making nuanced factual dis-
tinctions  but  also  demonstrate  that  applying  the  Board’s 
reasonable-precautions  precedents  is,  at  bottom,  a  line-
drawing exercise.  Under circumstances like these, a court 
can confidently declare that a union’s conduct is not even 
arguably protected for Garmon purposes only where the al-
legations make out a clear Fansteel claim or where the al-
leged facts implicate a reasonable-precautions case that is
directly on point.  Because neither is true here, the Court 
should  have  concluded  that  the  Union’s  conduct  was  at 
least arguably protected. 

Even if the Court’s task under Garmon were to apply the
Board’s reasonable-precautions principle to the allegations
of Glacier’s complaint and decide whether or not the Union 
engaged in unprotected conduct (to reiterate: that is not the
assignment, see Part III–A, supra), I cannot agree with the