Page:Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters.pdf/13

10 the employer’s perishable products would spoil. But given the lifespan of wet concrete, Glacier could not batch it until a truck was ready to take it. So by reporting for duty and pretending as if they would deliver the concrete, the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product. Then, they waited to walk off the job until the concrete was mixed and poured in the trucks. In so doing, they not only destroyed the concrete but also put Glacier’s trucks in harm’s way. This case therefore involves much more than “a work stoppage at a time when the loss of perishable products is foreseeable.” Brief for Respondent 22.

Third, the Union maintains that the timing of the strike and Glacier’s lack of notice cannot render the drivers’ conduct unprotected. Id., at 26–28. It argues that workers are not required to time their strikes to minimize economic harm to their employer, see Lumbee Farms, 285 N. L. R. B., at 506, and that the NLRA does not impose a legal requirement that workers give specific notice of a strike’s timing, see Columbia Portland Cement Co. v. NLRB, 915 F. 2d 253, 257 (CA6 1990).

We agree that the Union’s decision to initiate the strike during the workday and failure to give Glacier specific notice do not themselves render its conduct unprotected. Still, they are relevant considerations in evaluating whether strikers took reasonable precautions, whether harm to property was imminent, and whether that danger was foreseeable. See International Protective Services, Inc., 339 N. L. R. B. 701, 702–703 (2003) (attempt “ ‘to capitalize on the element of surprise’ ” stemming from a lack of notice weighed in favor of concluding that a union failed to take reasonable precautions). In this instance, the Union’s choice to call a strike after its drivers had loaded a large amount of wet concrete into Glacier’s delivery trucks strongly suggests that it failed to take reasonable precautions to avoid foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent harm to Glacier’s property.