485 U.S. 568 (1988) Cited 729 times 10 Legal Analyses
Holding that a union’s distribution of handbills at the entrances of a shopping mall was not threatening, coercing, or restraining within meaning of section 8(b) because there had been "no violence, picketing, or patrolling," and "no suggestion that the leaflets had any coercive effect on customers of the mall"
Holding that although the NLRA neither prohibits nor protects secondary boycotts, which function as a form of self-help available to unions to aid them in reaching their bargaining goals during negotiations, state-law attempts to regulate them are preempted because use of the boycott was part of the balance struck by Congress between the conflicting interests of the union, the employees, the employer, and the community; exceptions are when the type of conduct constitutes an imminent threat to public order or implicates deeply rooted local concerns
Holding under section 8(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b), that statutory protection for the distribution of handbills would be undermined if a threat to engage in protected conduct were not itself protected
Granting petition for review and vacating unfair labor practice finding because Board interpretation of "any employee who engages in a strike" under section 8(d) of Act was "in conflict with both interpretive precedent and the statute's structure" and produced "internal inconsistency" and "irrational results in practice"