William & Mary Law Review Online
Abstract
[Courts] should no longer ask simply whether a law is a “minimum labor standard.” Instead, they should look to context: They should ask whether the law skips or overrides some important part of the NLRA’s process. They should also ask whether the law was enacted for that purpose—whether it was meant to address some perceived gap in federal labor policy. If it was, they should look more closely. They should ask whether the law as applied contradicts Congress’s vision, either by taking away one side’s discretion or giving the other side new advantages. And if it does, they should find the law preempted.
Courts sometimes apply the NLRA [National Labor Relations Act] this way. They should do it more often. Otherwise, we may soon have no NLRA to speak of. Labor law will have been ceded to the states—and to the unions who know how to turn the levers of state policy.
This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.
Repository Citation
MacDonald, Alexander T.
(2026)
"Politics, Preemption, and Minimum Labor Standards: The Union-Led Erosion of the National Labor Relations Act,"
William & Mary Law Review Online: Vol. 67, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlronline/vol67/iss1/5