Court Opinion

ID: 9427498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:59.289818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.517939
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the result. I agree with that portion of Part III of the plurality’s opinion where the conclusion is reached that Congress has made its decision to permit a State to pay unemployment benefits to strikers. (Whether Congress has made that decision wisely is not for this Court to say.) Because I am not at all certain that the plurality’s opinion is fully consistent with the principles recently enunciated in Machinists v. Wisconsin Emp. Rel. Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132 (1976), I refrain from joining the opinion’s pre-emption analysis.
The plurality recognizes, ante, at 531, that the economic weapons employed in this case are similar to those under consideration in Machinists; there, too, the Court concluded that Congress intended to leave the employment of such weapons to the free play of economic forces, and not subject to regulation by either the State or the NLRB. And the opinion also recognizes, ante, at 531-532, as the District Court and the Court of Appeals both found, that New York’s statutory policy of paying unemployment benefits to strikers does indeed alter the economic balance between labor and management. See Super Tire Engineering Co. v. McCorkle, 416 U. S. 115, 123-124 (1974).
But the plurality now appears to hold, ante, at 532-533, that *548the analysis developed in Machinists and in its predecessor case, Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252 (1964), is inapplicable in the evaluation of the New York statute at issue here. The plurality seems to say that since the state statute does not purport to regulate private conduct in labor-management relations, but rather is intended to serve the State’s general purpose of providing benefits to certain members of the public in order to insure employment security, the Machinists-Morton analysis is not controlling. Relying on decisions of this Court indicating that Congress has been sensitive to the need to allow the States leeway in fashioning unemployment programs (see Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416 (1977); Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U. S. 471 (1977); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548 (1937)), the opinion then finds it appropriate to treat the New York statute with the deference afforded general state laws that protect state interests “deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility.” San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 244 (1959). Accordingly, the opinion concludes that “ 'in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power’ ” to establish unemployment compensation programs like that of New York, ante, at 540, quoting Garmon, 359 U. S., at 244.
This requirement that petitioners must demonstrate “compelling congressional direction” in order to establish preemption is not, I believe, consistent with the pre-emption principles laid down in Machinists. In that case, to repeat, the Court recognized that Congress had committed the use of economic self-help weapons to the free play of economic forces, and held that Wisconsin’s attempt to regulate what the federal law had failed to curb denied one party a weapon Congress meant that party to have available to it. 427 U. S., at 150. I believe, however, that Machinists indicates that the States are not free, entirely and always, directly to enhance *549the self-help capability of one of the parties to such a dispute so as to result in a significant shift in the balance of bargaining power struck by Congress. Where the exercise of state authority to curtail, prohibit, or enhance self-help “ 'would frustrate effective implementation of the Act’s processes/ ” id., at 148, quoting Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 380 (1969), I believe Machinists compels the conclusion that Congress intended to pre-empt such state activity, unless there is evidence of congressional intent to tolerate it.
The difference between Machinists and this case, it seems to me, is in the initial premise. In the present case, the plurality appears to be saying that there is no pre-emption unless “compelling congressional direction” indicates otherwise. The premise is therefore one of assumed priority on the state side. In Machinists, on the other hand, the Court said, I thought, that there is pre-emption unless there is evidence of congressional intent to tolerate the state practice. That premise, therefore, is one of assumed priority on the federal side. The distinction is not semantic.
Despite the distinction, however, either approach leads to the same result in the present case. The evidence recited in Part III of the plurality’s opinion establishes that Congress has decided to tolerate any interference caused by an unemployment compensation statute such as New York’s. But this fortuity should not obscure a difference in reasoning that could prove important in some other pre-emption case. Where evidence of congressional intent to tolerate a State’s significant alteration of the balance of economic power is lacking, Machinists might still require a holding of pre-emption notwithstanding the lack of compelling congressional direction that the state statute be pre-empted.
I believe this conclusion to be applicable to a case where a State alters the balance struck by Congress by conferring a benefit on a broadly defined class of citizens rather than by *550regulating more explicitly the conduct of parties to a labor-management dispute. The crucial inquiry is whether the exercise of state authority “frustrate [s] effective implementation of the Act’s processes,” not whether the State’s purpose was to confer a benefit on a class of citizens. I therefore see no basis for determining the question “whether Congress, explicitly or implicitly, has ruled out such assistance in its calculus of laws regulating labor-management disputes,” Super Tire, 416 U. S., at 124, other than in the very manner set out in Machinists in the evaluation of the more direct regulation of labor-management relations at issue in that case.
Nor do I agree that we should depart from the principles of Machinists on the ground that “our cases have consistently recognized that a congressional intent to deprive the States of their power to enforce such general laws is more difficult to infer than an intent to pre-empt laws directed specifically at concerted activity.” Ante, at 533. The Court recognized in Garmon, 359 U. S., at 244, that it has not “mattered whether the States have acted through laws of broad general application rather than laws specifically directed towards the governance of industrial relations.” See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, 436 U. S. 180, 193-195, and n. 24 (1978); Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290, 296-301 (1977). It is true, of course, that the Court has also recognized an exception to the Garmon principle and “allowed a State to enforce certain laws of general applicability even though aspects of the challenged conduct were arguably prohibited” where, for example, “the Court has upheld state-court jurisdiction over conduct that touches ‘interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act.’ ” Sears, 436 U. S., at 194-195, quoting Garmon, 359 U. S., at 244. But as the cases make clear, the Court has not extended this exception beyond a limited number of state interests that are at the core of the States’ duties *551and traditional concerns. See, e. g., Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131 (1957) (violence); Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (1966) (libel); Farmer v. Carpenters, supra (intentional infliction of mental distress). I do not think the New York statute here at issue fits within the preemption exception carved out by those cases, and I therefore would not apply the requirement, found in those cases, that “compelling congressional direction” be established before preemption can be found.
In summary, in the adjudication of this case, I would not depart from the path marked out by the Court’s decision in Machinists. Because, however, I believe the evidence justifies the conclusion that Congress has decided to permit New York’s unemployment compensation law, notwithstanding its impact on the balance of bargaining power, I concur in the Court’s judgment.