The U.S. Supreme Court case National Labor Relations Board v. Retail Store Employees Union, Local 1001, Retail Clerks International Association, AFL-CIO et al., revolved around the issue of whether a union's peaceful picketing to compel an employer to recognize and bargain with it as representative of its employees violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The court held that such conduct was indeed in violation of NLRA because it infringed on the rights of employees who did not support or were not members of the union. It also undermined other potential bargaining representatives' ability to compete for representation rights. In essence, this ruling affirmed that unions could not force employers into recognizing them through tactics like picketing; instead they must be chosen by a majority vote from their respective employee group.

In the dissenting opinion for the National Labor Relations Board v. Retail Store Employees Union, Local 1001 case, Justice Brennan argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with previous rulings and failed to consider important aspects of labor law. He contended that picketing by a union should not be considered an unfair labor practice unless it involved threats or coercion against employees who did not wish to join their cause. The majority's ruling, he believed, undermined workers' rights to protest and organize collectively in order to improve their working conditions. Furthermore, he criticized the Court for failing to distinguish between primary and secondary boycotts in its judgment - a distinction which had been crucial in past decisions regarding similar cases.