Lechmere, Inc. V. National Labor Relations Board - The Decision

The Decision

The Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision based on three primary faults observed with the complaint:

• The NLRA "confers rights only on employees, not on unions or their nonemployee organizers." They reasoned that the NLRA, while guaranteeing that employees would be free to organize if those so chose, the employer is not obligated to allow nonemployee union representatives access to their private property.

• §7 of the NLRA does not apply to nonemployee union organizers except when, "the inaccessibility of employees makes ineffective the reasonable attempts by nonemployees to communicate with them through the usual channels." The Court reasoned it was improper to even begin a balancing test with regards to 7 and private property rights unless "reasonable access to employees is infeasible."

• The union failed in demonstrating that there were any "unique obstacles" that prevented reasonable union access to the employees. The employees did not live in the shopping plaza, so they were not beyond the union's reach, and the Court further reasoned that the mere size of the city itself did not render the employees "inaccessible." The Court cited the fact that the union had been able to directly contact at least 20 employees regarding the organization.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Thomas, who was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Souter. Justice White filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Blackmun. Justice Stevens filed a separate dissenting opinion.