Although the Supremes didn’t challenge our right to strike, it did create a new precedent that businesses can retaliate by suing workers for damages caused by the strike. Thus undermining the whole purpose of the movement.
FTA:
There’s been a lot of writing about the case, but here’s the upshot: Workers still clearly have the right to strike, but the Court’s decision opens the floodgates for employers to weaponize financially burdensome state court litigation as a pressure tactic against workers and unions. The decision could have been worse—it contains some guardrails that may help limit the damage and provide unions with defenses because it doesn’t allow lawsuits for economic harm under any and all circumstances. But it’s still a very harmful decision that hands employers another way to suppress worker organizing and reduce worker power.
My understanding is that workers loaded wet concrete into trucks and then walked off the job without telling anyone. They’re getting sued for the thousands of dollars of damage to equipment this caused, not the economic damage caused by not working.
Edit: the article linked says there was no equipment damage, and the dispute is over the value of the wasted concrete.
Historical precedent suggests that this is a flimsy excuse.