The U.S. Supreme Court case Litton Financial Printing Division v. National Labor Relations Board (1990) revolved around the issue of whether an employer, who had unilaterally implemented a layoff policy during negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement, was obligated to arbitrate grievances under the expired agreement's arbitration clause after it terminated its relationship with the union. The court held that post-expiration grievances can be subjected to arbitration only if they arise under the contract or involve facts and occurrences that arose before expiration, where an action taken after expiration infringes a right that accrued or vested under the agreement; or where, under normal principles of contract interpretation, the disputed contractual right survives expiration of remainder of agreement. In this case however, since layoffs occurred after termination and did not implicate any rights vesting in employees prior to termination nor were found surviving beyond expiry by virtue of specific language in contract itself - hence no obligation on part of employer existed towards such arbitration.

In the dissenting opinion for Litton Financial Printing Division v. National Labor Relations Board, Justice White disagreed with the majority's view that an employer is not obligated to bargain over a decision to close part of its business due to economic reasons. He argued that such decisions are within the scope of mandatory bargaining under Section 8(d) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). According to him, this section requires employers and unions to negotiate in good faith about "wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment." The closure or partial closure of a business directly affects employees' jobs - their wages and working hours - thus it should be considered as falling within these categories. Therefore, he believed that employers must discuss such decisions with labor representatives before making them final.