A No-Strike Clause Is Only as Good as the Union You Can Reach

When Teamsters Local 701 walked out at an Airgas plant in New Jersey last summer, the picket lines spread to Allentown, Pa., where Local 773 workers joined in, even though their own contract still had a no-strike clause in effect.

Airgas did what a lot of employers would do. It sued the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, arguing the national union orchestrated the whole thing.

Last week a federal judge in Pennsylvania threw the case out. Per Judge Leeson, Airgas couldn’t show the IBT was an “agent” or “alter ego” of the locals. Under the Supreme Court’s Granite Rock decision, a parent union isn’t on the hook for a local’s strike unless it “instigated, supported, ratified, or encouraged” it. The only way to prove it is to sue, which Airgas did, but Airgas didn’t prove agent / alter ego status.

Employers: a no-strike clause binds the local that signed it. Proving the international pulled the strings is a much steeper climb.