The State - News from Dec. 31, 1985

A policy change by President Reagan’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, allowing strikes or lockouts in some cases without prior notice to federal mediators, was upheld by a federal appeals court. Paul Supton, a union lawyer in San Francisco, predicted increased labor disruption in the form of “surprise warfare” by both labor and management as a result of the NLRB decision affirmed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Under the previous policy, neither labor nor management under a union contract could unilaterally end or modify the contract or engage in a strike or lockout, without 30 days’ notice to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.