Quote Originally Posted by rbaloha View Post
Its no different than the owner's always wanting a lockout. Both sides followed through.
The key distinction is that from the NLRB's perspective, lockouts are legitimate. They're identical to strikes, except they're perpetrated by management and not labor. But there's nothing a priori unacceptable about a lockout, since one can always be avoided (and ended) by negotiating and it's the NLRB's goal to encourage such. The NLRB, however, has a vested interest in preventing sham-decertification-coupled-with-lawsuit as a negotiating practice since it is an inherently unfair negotiating strategy (and it ties up federal courts with an issue that should really just be resolved in a board room).

In principle, if a union should be allowed to strike then management should be allowed to lock out labor. If one isn't allowable, then the other shouldn't be either.