On the night of February 28, Local 94 called a strike and some of its members began picketing the New York Post’s printing facility in the Bronx, New York. For some time during that night, certain Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’ Union’s (NMDU) drivers refused to leave the facility and deliver newspapers.

The NMDU claimed that the drivers acted out of concern for their safety. It had been reported that before midnight on February 28, a bottle had been thrown from a highway overpass at the windshield of a New York Post truck driven by an NMDU member, shortly after it had left the facility. The bottle shattered the windshield, causing the truck to return to the facility. The NMDU claimed that its drivers believed the bottle had been thrown by a member of Local 94 or someone else sympathetic to that union’s strike, and that they refused to drive their trucks out of genuine fear for their own safety.

The Post contended that the drivers’ work stoppage was unrelated to this incident and was actually a sympathy strike with Local 94. The Post, invoking a no-strike provision in the parties’ collective bargaining agreement, sought to enjoin the NMDU from any further work stoppages for the duration of its negotiations with Local 94, because it believed that the threat of a sympathy strike by the NMDU gave Local 94 an unfair degree of leverage with which to negotiate.

After hearing arguments from both sides, the arbitrator issued a “status quo order,” directing the NMDU drivers to return to work on the condition that the Post help to ensure their safety by assigning two drivers per truck for the remainder of that morning. The NMDU claimed that the drivers returned to work after having the ruling explained to them and being assured that members of Local 94 would not take any actions against them. The Post claimed that the drivers returned to work only after the Post agreed to further negotiations with Local 94. The Post sought an injunction barring NMDU from engaging in any work stoppage for the duration of the negotiations under way between the Post and Local 94. Did NMDU’s actions constitute a sympathy strike? Can the Post prevent NMDU from further strikes? Why?