New York Nuisance Law Survives NLRA Preemption

Newyork Thanks to Bill Herbert (Deputy Chair and Counsel to the New York PERB) for letting us know about a recent New York Court of Appeals ruling concerning whether a nuisance suit under New York law was preempted by the NLRA.  Readers will recall that Prof. Hirsch and I debated the relationship between the NLRA and state laws in our recent on-line debate in PENNumbra and it is a topic I recently wrote on separately in the captive audience meeting context.

In this case, Helmsley-Spear, Inc. v. Fishman, 08-164 (Nov. 24, 2008), the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) found in a 4-2 decision (one Justice not participating) that the plaintiffs’ private nuisance cause of action was not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  More specifically, the court found that:

[E]ven if one were to assume that the drumming [outside of the building by the union] constituted arguably “protected” conduct under the NLRA, as the Union argues and the Appellate Division implied, it does not necessarily follow that our state courts are foreclosed from adjudicating plaintiffs’ claim. This point was made clear in Sears, Roebuck & Co., where the United States Supreme Court held that a state trespass claim lodged by an employer against picketers — challenging the location of the picketing as opposed to the picketing itself — was not preempted by the NLRA even though trespass was arguably protected under the Act (436 US at 198-204) . . . .

Balancing the state interest in adjudicating private nuisance claims against the interference with the NLRB’s ability to determine matters committed to it by the NLRA and the risk that state courts will prohibit conduct otherwise protected by the Act, we conclude that Congress did not intend to preempt the jurisdiction of state courts to adjudicate the tortious conduct alleged here.

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Significant Canadian Labor Decision on Right to Bargain

Canadianflag David Doorey (York Univ.) sends along word that there was a big decision this week from the Ontario Court of Appeal that ruled unconstitutional a statute that did not require employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by  a majority of employees, and that provided for no dispute resolution mechanism to deal with bargaining impasses.

Although the statute in question applied only to agricultural workers, David points out that it is an interesting case in the development of the constitutional right to collective bargaining that they have had in Canada since the a decision of the Supreme Court in 2007.

Here’s David’s blog entry on it, which links to the decision in Fraser v. Ontario, so that readers from other countries can keep up on these important labor developments.

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Unions, As Shareholders, Use Bailout to Push Executive Compenstion Reforms

Unionyes My labor and employment law colleague, Phoebe Williams, who also teaches business associations, brings to my attention the roles unions, as shareholders, are seeking to play in the current government bailout scheme.

According to the Risk and Governance Blog:

The Laborers’ International Union of North America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are filing new proposals that seek compensation reforms at companies that participate in the U.S. Treasury Department’s bailout program.

In the supporting statement for these 2009 resolutions, the labor funds argue that the pay restrictions in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) “fail to adequately address the serious shortcomings of many executive compensation plans.” Instead, the unions urge directors to adopt “more rigorous executive compensation reforms that we believe will significantly improve the pay-for-performance features of the Company’s plan and help restore investor confidence.”

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