Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ON THE LABOR FRONT—New York’s Purported NLRA Preemption Circumvention Thwarted. Is California’s Next?, (Jan 7, 2026)

By Michael J. Soltis

Under the New York amendment, PERB would regulate all activity that had been permitted or prohibited by the NLRA for decades.

Occasionally, a suit is filed, and the outcome seems inevitable. An example is the challenge to the recently amended New York Labor Law that subjected most private sector employers to the state’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), snatching exclusive jurisdiction from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unless a court ordered otherwise.

Within days after the amendment was passed, Amazon became the first employer to feel its effects. The Amazon Workers Union which represents employees at the employer’s JFK Fulfillment Center filed an unfair labor practice charge with the New York PERB alleging that Amazon terminated an employee because of his union activity. Before the amendment, such a charge would have been filed at the NLRB. Amazon sued to enjoin the proceedings, arguing that the New York amendment was preempted by the NLRA.

Given the decades-old preemption principles banning states from infringing on our national labor policy established by the NLRA, how could New York possibly prevail in that litigation? As expected, it did not.

To read more about the NLRA’s preemption principles, see Mike Soltis’ latest On the Labor Front article: New York’s Purported NLRA Preemption Circumvention Thwarted. Is California’s Next?

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