Appeals Court: State Strikebreaker Law Incompatible With Federal Law
1/11/2006

CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that a 2003 Illinois state law that protects striking workers is "starkly incompatible" with federal labor law.

The opinion issued Tuesday on an amendment to the state's Employment of Strikebreakers Act says the law couldn't have been passed by responsible lawmakers.

The amendment made it a crime for employers to use day labor service or other temporary agencies to replace striking workers, meaning employers had to put any replacement workers on their own payrolls.

A three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the law enters an area wholly governed by federal law.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the owners of Chicago's Congress Plaza Hotel, which is in the midst of a two-and-a-half-year labor dispute.