Salvatore Puglia v. Elk Pipeline, Inc.(075171)

New Jersey has a significant body of statutory and decisional law protecting employee rights — protections that exist whether the employee is a union member or not. Among those are wage and hour and whistleblower protections. Facts that can give rise to a violation of those state-law protections can often (for union workers) also give rise to a claim based on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) or under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This appeal raises questions involving federal labor-law preemption and asks whether a state-law whistleblower retaliation claim premised on an…