[1] In the summer of 1936, workers at Fansteel Metallurgical Corporation's plant near Chicago, Illinois, attempted to form a union.

[2][3] The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held on March 14, 1938, that Fansteel had to reinstate 90 of the workers because the company had violated the Act first (precipitating the sit-down strike).

[7] He disagreed, however, that the workers who abetted the sit-down strikers had lost the protection of the Act (as the majority had concluded), and felt the Board had the power to order their reinstatement.

It did not; rather, the court held that the NLRB had no authority to force an employer to reinstate workers who engaged in a sit-down strike.

[13] The Fansteel Court initially limited discharge to those employees who had violated the law during a strike,[4] but the Supreme Court held in Southern Steamship Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 316 U.S. 31 (1942), that an employer could discharge an employee for any violation of federal law, whether it occurred during a strike or not.

[4] And in NLRB v. Sands Manufacturing Co., 306 U.S. 332 (1939), the Court held that an employer could discipline a striking employee for acts committed away from the job site.