Opinion ID: 501223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Preemption Claims

Text: 77 Although I find that the union violated the Elliott-Larsen Act, the difficult issue in this case is whether a meritorious state-law discrimination action is nonetheless preempted by federal labor law. 78 Whenever federal regulatory legislation is enacted, numerous lawsuits urging preemption of similar state statutes and the establishment of federal common law rules can be expected. Certainly this has been true with respect to federal regulation touching the employer/employee relationship, as demonstrated by the litigative history of ERISA, NLRA, Taft-Hartley, Landrum-Griffin, and Title VII. Preemption issues touch the fundamental doctrines upon which our government is based: the separation of powers and federalism. Decisions regarding preemption are decisions interpreting the Supremacy Clause and the separation and allocation of power among the various tribunals of the state and federal governments of our federal system. The Supreme Court recently summarized the general thrust of preemption analysis: 79 [T]he NLRA contains no statutory pre-emption provision. Still, as in any pre-emption analysis,  '[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone.'  Where the pre-emptive effect of federal enactments is not explicit, courts sustain a local regulation 'unless it conflicts with federal law or would frustrate the federal scheme, or unless the courts discern from the totality of the circumstances that Congress sought to occupy the field to the exclusion of the States.'  80 Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 724, 747-48, 105 S.Ct. 2380, 2393, 85 L.Ed.2d 728 (1985) (citations omitted). The Court has consistently held that in enacting the NLRA and the LMRA, Congress did not intend to completely occupy the field; the States retain some authority to enact labor-related legislation. See Allis-Chalmers v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 208-09, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1909-10, 85 L.Ed.2d 206 (1985); Amalgamated Ass'n of Street, Electric Ry. & Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U.S. 274, 289, 91 S.Ct. 1909, 1919, 29 L.Ed.2d 473 (1971); Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U.S. 485, 488, 74 S.Ct. 161, 164, 98 L.Ed. 228 (1953). 81 The problem is that Congress has not indicated even in a general way how much state authority has been preempted. See Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 208, 105 S.Ct. at 1909; Lockridge, 403 U.S. at 289, 91 S.Ct. at 1919. Indeed, with respect to the relationship between a union and its members--the type of relationship we have in the instant case--there is some suggestion that Congress never intended to oust any state regulation. See Cox, Labor Law Preemption Revisited, 85 Harv.L.Rev. 1337, 1372-73 (1972); Cox, Recent Developments in Federal Labor Law Preemption, 41 Ohio St.L.J. 277, 284 (1980). The judicially-developed preemption rules create standards to determine the preemption questions left unanswered by Congress. 82 Four major interconnecting preemption doctrines exist. Two are involved in this case. 83 A. Interference with a Federally Guaranteed Right --Brown Preemption 84 The simplest preemption doctrine provides that the States may not regulate conduct that is actually protected by federal law. See Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 54, 468 U.S. 491, 503, 104 S.Ct. 3179, 3186, 82 L.Ed.2d 373 (1984). This principle is applicable to every conflict between state and federal substantive law, and flows directly from the Supremacy Clause. Id. Courts must first determine whether a federal right exists, and then assess the impact of a state regulation upon that federal right. 85 This simple rule is also simple to apply in the present case. It cannot be argued that the NLRA, or any federal statute, gives a labor union the right to engage in sex discrimination. Indeed, this Circuit has held that sex discrimination by a union constitutes an unfair labor practice prohibited by Sec. 8 of the NLRA. NLRB v. Local 106, Glass Bottle Blowers Ass'n, 520 F.2d 693 (6th Cir.1975); see also Bell & Howell Co., 230 N.L.R.B. 420 (1977). There can be no argument, therefore, that the Michigan statute is preempted by a conflict with a federally guaranteed substantive right. 86 B. Regulation of Labor/Management Balance of Power--Machinists Preemption. 87 A second variety of preemption operates when the State seeks to alter the economic power of labor or management. The NLRA established a balance of economic power between these competing factions. In that statute, Congress guaranteed some economic power through Sec. 7 protection, and prohibited some techniques by listing them as unfair labor practices under Sec. 8. However, by its silence as to other economic weapons, Congress indicated an intent to let some aspects of the labor/management relationship be controlled by the free play of economic forces. Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n., 427 U.S. 132, 140, 96 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 49 L.Ed.2d 396 (1976). As described in Belknap v. Hale, 463 U.S. 491, 499, 103 S.Ct. 3172, 3177, 77 L.Ed.2d 798 (1983), the preemption doctrine announced in Machinists proscribes state regulation and state-law causes of action concerning conduct that Congress intended to be unregulated, ... conduct that was to remain a part of the self-help remedies left to the combatants in labor disputes. Belknap, 463 U.S. at 499, 103 S.Ct. at 3177 (citations omitted). 88 The rationale of the Machinists case makes clear that this type of preemption applies only to state action which affects the balance of power between labor and management. But the Michigan statute at issue here affects only the union's relationship to its members. It is also obvious that Congress did not intend to allow a union to use sex discrimination against its members as a self-help measure. Machinists preemption is therefore wholly inapplicable to the present case. 89 C. Interpretation of Labor Contracts--LMRA Sec. 301 Preemption 90 Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185(a), authorizes direct suit in the district courts for violations of a collective bargaining agreement. This statute has been interpreted as a mandate for the courts to fashion a uniform body of federal common law to resolve disputes over the interpretation and enforcement of these federal labor contracts. See generally Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 456, 77 S.Ct. 912, 917, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957); Field, Sources of Law: The Scope of Federal Common Law, 99 Harv.L.Rev. 883 (1986). This mandate means that in order to achieve the uniformity contemplated by Congress, the federal common law created through Sec. 301 should preempt state regulation of the terms of collective bargaining agreements. See Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 103-04, 82 S.Ct. 571, 576-77, 7 L.Ed.2d 593 (1962). Section 301 preemption applies whenever a state rule purports to define the meaning or scope of a term in a collective bargaining agreement. Allis-Chalmers, at 471 U.S. 210, 105 S.Ct. at 1911. Claims cognizable under state law must be brought as Sec. 301 suits when they are substantially dependent upon analysis of the terms of an agreement made between the parties in a labor contract. Id. at 220, 105 S.Ct. at 1916; I.B.E.W. v. Hechler, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 2161, 2166 n. 3, 95 L.Ed.2d 791 (1987). 91 As noted by the Court in Allis-Chalmers, however, the preemptive scope of Sec. 301 is not all-encompassing: Congress did not intend to displace all state law concerning employment or collective agreements. 471 U.S. at 208, 105 S.Ct. at 1909; see also Michigan Mutual Insurance Co. v. United Steelworkers, 774 F.2d 104, 106 (6th Cir.1985) (interpreting Allis-Chalmers ). Therefore, state rules that proscribe conduct, or establish rights and obligations, independent of a labor contract are not preempted even if they are related to the agreement in some way. Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 212, 105 S.Ct. at 1912; Michigan Mutual, 774 F.2d at 106. The focus is on whether the effect of the state law can be altered by agreement of the parties. If the parties to a collective bargaining agreement can contract away the protection of the state statute, the statute is not sufficiently independent of that agreement and it is preempted. Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 213, 105 S.Ct. at 1912. 92 The Allis-Chalmers opinion illustrates the application of Sec. 301 preemption. At issue in that case was the effect of Sec. 301 on a Wisconsin tort statute allowing an employee to recover against an employer for the employer's bad faith in processing an insurance claim. In order to show bad faith on the part of his employer, the plaintiff had to prove the scope of the duty owed to him. Since this duty of care was in turn defined by the collective bargaining agreement, the tort suit could not be resolved without rendering an interpretation of the federal labor contract. Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 216-19, 105 S.Ct. at 1913-15. This dependence on the terms of the collective bargaining agreement caused preemption of the Wisconsin statute. 93 In I.B.E.W. v. Hechler, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 2161, 95 L.Ed.2d 791 (1987), the Allis-Chalmers analysis was extended beyond the employee-employer relationship to suits between a union and its membership involving implied terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The plaintiff alleged that she was injured on the job because of inadequate training. The collective bargaining agreement contained language that placed some responsibility on the union to supervise the placement and training of its members. 107 S.Ct. at 2168 n. 4. The plaintiff brought a common-law negligence action against the union based upon the union's breach of a duty to place the plaintiff in a safe workplace. The union removed the case to federal court, and ultimately won a dismissal, on the grounds that Sec. 301 governed the plaintiff's cause of action. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the dismissal, holding that the tort action was independent of the collective bargaining agreement. 94 The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Hechler to resolve a split that decision had created with this Circuit's decision in Michigan Mutual Insurance Co. v. United Steelworkers, 774 F.2d 104 (6th Cir.1985), which held that Sec. 301 preempted a similar claim under Michigan law. In reversing the Eleventh Circuit's decision in Hechler, the Supreme Court focused on the source of the duty to provide adequate training which gave rise to the state tort action. Since the employer, not the union, had the common-law responsibility to provide a safe workplace, the union must have assumed that duty in the collective bargaining agreement or it would not be liable at all under the plaintiff's theory of the case. Therefore, the union's duty of care was wholly contractual and flowed from the collective bargaining agreement, not state common or statutory law. Hechler, 107 S.Ct. at 2167-68. Because questions of contract interpretation ... underlie any finding of tort liability where the duty at issue flows from the collective bargaining agreement, the Court concluded that Ms. Hechler's cause of action was preempted by Sec. 301. 107 S.Ct. at 2168 (quoting Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 218, 105 S.Ct. at 1915). 95 Unlike the actions at issue in Hechler, Allis-Chalmers, and in Maynard v. Revere Copper Products, Inc., 773 F.2d 733 (6th Cir.1985), cases which are clearly misinterpreted in the majority opinion, the duty at issue in the present case does not flow from the collective bargaining agreement. This distinction is crucial, because the noncontractual nature of the duty also means that it cannot be waived or altered by agreement of [the] parties. Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 213, 105 S.Ct. at 1912. Liability under the Elliott-Larsen Act accrues for violating its statutory prohibitions on discrimination, not for the breach of a contractual duty of care established by the collective bargaining agreement. No contract interpretation is required to ascertain the scope of a statutory duty, this being precisely the kind of non-waivable, independent duty approved by the Allis-Chalmers Court. See Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 212, 105 S.Ct. at 1911. 96 In Maynard v. Revere Copper, supra, relied upon heavily by the majority opinion, Judge Lively, after quoting the Michigan statute prohibiting a union from failing to fairly and adequately represent a member in a grievance process because of a member's handicap, says that: 97 Judge Guy [the district judge] concluded that this provision creates no new rights for an employee and imposed no duty on a union not already clearly present under existing federal labor law. 98 773 F.2d at 735 (emphasis added). Thus in Maynard the state law was held to be precisely the same as federal labor law and gave no rights different from and independent of those arising under the language of the labor management contract as interpreted under federal labor law. This is precisely the kind of problem the Supreme Court dealt with in Allis-Chalmers v. Lueck, supra. Allis-Chalmers is directly on point for the Maynard case but not in our case. Maynard is distinguishable from the instant case for the same reason that Lueck is distinguishable from our case: namely, the source of the sex discrimination rights that the plaintiff asserts are separate from and independent of rights under the collective bargaining agreement and federal labor law. In the next section, which deals with Garmon preemption, I will set out in more detail the reasons why the state's sex discrimination statutory tort does not overlap or impinge upon any federal labor law. 99 The present case is unusual, however, because the contract is interpreted to establish a defense, not to establish the duty upon which the action is based. I believe that this is the type of tangential relationship which is insufficient to trigger federal preemption. See Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 211, 105 S.Ct. at 1911. Section 301 was not enacted to allow a defendant to escape a state anti-discrimination statute by raising a labor contract in defense. Federal law must be used to establish the defense because the labor contract is itself a creature of federal law. But the fact that the labor agreement must be considered by the trial court in assessing liability for sex discrimination will not result in conflicting interpretations of these federal contracts, and therefore does not implicate Sec. 301 preemption.D. Interference With NLRB Jurisdiction--Garmon Preemption 100 It is unclear to me whether the majority is applying Garmon preemption to defeat and preempt state sex discrimination law or not. 101 When Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act, it enacted comprehensive procedural rules and created a new tribunal--the National Labor Relations Board--to administer this specially designed regulatory structure. The result was a complex and interrelated scheme of federal law, remedy, and administration designed to achieve uniformity in our national labor policy. See San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 242-43, 79 S.Ct. 773, 778-79, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959). Entrusting interpretation and enforcement of the NLRA to a centralized administrative agency, armed with its own procedures, and equipped with its specialized knowledge and cumulative experience, was crucial to achieving the desired uniformity. Id. at 242, 79 S.Ct. at 778. Otherwise, differing judicial attitudes and procedures among multiple tribunals would inevitably produce conflicting interpretations of the NLRA. See Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U.S. 485, 490-91, 74 S.Ct. 161, 165-66, 98 L.Ed. 228 (1953). 102 The Supreme Court has fashioned a special preemption doctrine to protect the centralization of administration envisioned by Congress. In Garmon, the Court held that [w]hen an activity is arguably subject to Sec. 7 or Sec. 8 of the Act, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted. 359 U.S. at 245, 79 S.Ct. at 780. The breadth of the language used in this standard--arguably subject to Sec. 7 or Sec. 8--is meant to protect jealously the NLRB's authority to interpret and enforce the core sections of the statute. If primary administrative authority is to mean anything, it must include giving the NLRB the initial opportunity to determine whether conduct is protected activity under Sec. 7, or prohibited as an unfair labor practice under Sec. 8. 103 The Garmon opinion itself, however, admits exceptions to the NLRB's primary jurisdiction. Where the conduct at issue is of only peripheral concern to federal labor policy, centralized decision-making is not as important, Garmon, 359 U.S. at 243, 79 S.Ct. at 778; and the gains to be reaped from a diffusion of power in our federal system support limited state regulation of these peripheral matters. Id. In addition, respect for the regulatory role of the States also requires that their authority be maintained over activity deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility. Id. at 244, 79 S.Ct. at 779. This second exception is necessary because Congress has provided no compelling indication that it intended to deprive the States of their traditional power over these matters. Id. 104 The Garmon rule remains the general test for preemption, but a number of recent cases have addressed limitations on the rule that go beyond the two stated in the opinion. These cases reflect the Supreme Court's reluctance to apply Garmon in a literal, mechanistic fashion. Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 188, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 1753, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978). Of particular relevance here is the evolving distinction between conduct that is arguably protected and that which is arguably prohibited under the Act. Since there can be no argument that sex discrimination by a labor union is even arguably protected by the NLRA, we need to focus on the cases dealing with the arguably prohibited branch of Garmon. 105 Where a state cause of action prohibits conduct that is arguably prohibited by the NLRA, there is no danger that state regulation will interfere with conduct that Congress intended to protect. See Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 430 U.S. 290, 298, 302, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 1062, 1064, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977). In such a case, the preemption question turns on a balancing of the respective federal and state interests in regulating the conduct. Id. at 300, 97 S.Ct. at 1063; Belknap v. Hale, 463 U.S. 491, 498-99, 103 S.Ct. 3172, 3177, 77 L.Ed.2d 798 (1983); Local 926, Int'l Union of Operating Eng'rs v. Jones, 460 U.S. 669, 676, 103 S.Ct. 1453, 1458, 75 L.Ed.2d 368 (1983). That the state cause of action presents some risk to an area of primary federal concern is insufficient to preempt it. Id. 430 U.S. at 303, 97 S.Ct. at 1065; Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 196 n. 25, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 1757 n. 25, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978). Thus a statute which would be preempted under a rigid application of the Garmon rule may nonetheless be upheld if the State's interest is sufficiently compelling. Farmer, 430 U.S. at 302, 97 S.Ct. at 1064. 106 Another factor to be considered in the preemption equation is the extent to which litigation in the state forum will be similar to the federal proceeding in content and remedy. This concept is best stated by the Court in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Council of Carpenters. Reasoning from the primary jurisdiction rationale of Garmon and considering the procedural difficulties of obtaining Board review in some contexts, the Sears Court held that a state cause of action is preempted only where the controversy presented to the state court is identical to that which could have been presented to the Board. Sears, 436 U.S. at 197, 202, 98 S.Ct. at 1757, 1760. The focus is on the character of the litigation in the two forums: i.e. whether the predicate issues and available remedies are the same. See Cox, Recent Developments in Federal Labor Law Preemption, 41 Ohio St.L.J. 277, 282-84 (1980). Where this identity is lacking, the state court's adjudication of the state cause of action does not threaten the federal regulatory scheme because the state tribunal does not purport to act as a surrogate labor board. Sears, 436 U.S. at 197 n. 26, 98 S.Ct. at 1757 n. 26 (quoting Farmer, 430 U.S. at 304-05, 97 S.Ct. at 1065-66). 107 The foregoing cases establish a framework for deciding the Sec. 8 preemption question posed by the present litigation. As a starting point, there is no question that sex discrimination by a union against its members constitutes a breach of the union's duty of fair representation and is an unfair labor practice. See N.L.R.B. v. Local 106, Glass Bottle Blowers Ass'n, 520 F.2d 693 (6th Cir.1975); Bell & Howell Co., 230 N.L.R.B. 420 (1977). This triggers the presumption of preemption enunciated in Garmon, and the Michigan statute can survive preemption only if the local interest exception to Garmon is applicable. 108 I do not pause long on the question of whether sex discrimination is a matter of local interest. Given the prevalence and perniciousness of gender-based discrimination in the workplace, the State of Michigan has an obvious and compelling interest in enacting prohibitory legislation. The State's interest here is at least as weighty as the interests that have justified a local interest exception in previous cases. See Farmer, 430 U.S. at 302, 97 S.Ct. at 1064 (infliction of emotional distress); Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U.S. 53, 86 S.Ct. 657, 15 L.Ed.2d 582 (1966) (libel); Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U.S. 634, 78 S.Ct. 932, 2 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1958) (physical violence). This interest is therefore sufficient to prevent preemption here unless the Michigan statute creates undue interference with the federal regulatory scheme. 109 In an analogous situation, the Supreme Court has held that private suits to enforce the union's duty of fair representation do not create undue interference with the federal regulatory scheme. In Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 182-84, 87 S.Ct. 903, 912-14, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967), the Court held that the history and special purpose of the duty of fair representation doctrine undercut the rationale for primary Board jurisdiction: 110 A primary justification for the pre-emption doctrine--the need to avoid conflicting rules of substantive law in the labor relations area and the desirability of leaving the development of such rules to the administrative agency created by Congress for that purpose--is not applicable to cases involving alleged breaches of the union's duty of fair representation. The doctrine was judicially developed in Steele [v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944) ] and its progeny, and suits alleging breach of the duty remained judicially cognizable long after the NLRB was given unfair labor practice jurisdiction over union activities by the L.M.R.A. Moreover, when the Board declared in Miranda Fuel [140 N.L.R.B. 181 (1962) enforcement denied, 326 F.2d 172 (C.A.2d Cir.1963) ] that a union's breach of its duty of fair representation would henceforth be treated as an unfair labor practice, the Board adopted and applied the doctrine as it had been developed by the federal courts. Finally, as the dissenting Board members in Miranda Fuel have pointed out, fair representation duty suits often require review of the substantive positions taken and policies pursued by a union in its negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement and in its handling of the grievance machinery; as these matters are not normally within the Board's unfair labor practice jurisdiction, it can be doubted whether the Board brings substantially greater expertise to bear on these problems than do the courts, which have been engaged in this type of review since the Steele decision. 111 In addition to the above considerations, the unique interests served by the duty of fair representation doctrine have a profound effect, in our opinion, on the applicability of the pre-emption rule to this class of cases.... [T]he duty of fair representation has stood as a bulwark to prevent arbitrary union conduct against individuals stripped of traditional forms of redress by the provisions of federal labor law. Were we to hold, as petitioners and the Government urge, that the courts are foreclosed by the NLRB's Miranda Fuel decision from this traditional supervisory jurisdiction, the individual employee injured by arbitrary or discriminatory union conduct could no longer be assured of impartial review of his complaint, since the Board's General Counsel has unreviewable discretion to refuse to institute an unfair labor practice complaint. The existence of even a small group of cases in which the Board would be unwilling or unable to remedy a union's breach of duty would frustrate the basic purposes underlying the duty of fair representation doctrine. 112 Vaca, 386 U.S. at 180-83, 87 S.Ct. at 912-13 (citations and footnotes omitted). 113 Furthermore, Congress has itself recognized that the primary NLRB jurisdiction must yield where a union discriminates against its members on the basis of sex. In order to vindicate the public interest in eliminating union discrimination without forcing recourse to inadequate NLRB procedures, Congress included a special provision in Title VII to cover discrimination by a union, and allowed this prohibition to be enforced by a private action. See 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e-2-5 (1982). Congress obviously found the potential interference caused by private suits to be acceptable in light of the importance of eradicating discrimination. Since the Michigan Elliot-Larsen Act is patterned after Title VII, it will not pose a significantly greater threat to national labor policy than that already endorsed by Congress. 114 The apparent contradiction between Garmon preemption and the approach taken in the Vaca case and Title VII can be resolved by reference to the original purpose of the preemption rule: ensuring that disputes within the Board's expertise were committed first to it. But, as Professor Cox has noted, Congress has never developed a comprehensive and impliedly exclusive plan of federal regulation for union-member relations. Cox, Labor Law Preemption Revisited, 85 Harv.L.Rev. 1337, 1372 (1972). As a result, the NLRB has no special expertise over these disputes. Furthermore, the courts, not the NLRB, generally adjudicate discrimination actions. Since the NLRB has little expertise over either the parties or the subject-matter of the dispute, the primary jurisdiction rationale of Garmon does not apply to a discrimination suit between a union member and a union. 115 Moreover, whatever interference with NLRB jurisdiction is posed by the present claim, it is diminished by the marked dissimilarity between an Elliott-Larsen proceeding and an unfair labor practice charge. See Sears, 436 U.S. at 197, 98 S.Ct. at 1757. An Elliott-Larsen plaintiff controls her own lawsuit, while the unfair labor practice charge ultimately pits the NLRB, not the charging individual, against the party charged with the violation. While the Vaca Court described the drawbacks of NLRB representation from the plaintiff's perspective, 386 U.S. at 182-83, 87 S.Ct. at 912-13, an unfair labor practice proceeding does allow the aggrieved party a chance at redress without hiring a private attorney. Furthermore, distinct remedies--punitive damages under the state statute or decertification of the union under the NLRA--reinforce the discrete purposes of the two statutes. Stated in terms used by the Sears Court, an Elliott-Larsen action does not present a controversy identical to ... that which could have been, but was not, presented to the Labor Board. 436 U.S. at 197, 98 S.Ct. at 1757. 116 I conclude, therefore, that the state statute is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. When measured against the weighty interest the State of Michigan has in eliminating discrimination, the potential interference with national labor policy created by the Elliott-Larsen Act is insufficient to force preemption of the statute. Both the Supreme Court in Vaca v. Sipes, and Congress in Title VII, have indicated the limits of the NLRA as an anti-discrimination statute. The State of Michigan has enacted a law that recognizes these limitations and prescribes an alternative remedy consistent with that provided by Congress in Title VII. Under these circumstances, there is no reason to believe that Congress enacted the NLRA to prevent such a salutary development in the laws of the States.