New York enacted a law allowing its Public Employment Relations Board to take certain private-sector labor cases when the federal National Labor Relations Board lacked a functioning quorum. A federal court blocked the state law under federal preemption, concluding that federal labor law preempts the field, and the NLRB later dropped its own challenge after the injunction. The episode leaves New York with a policy question rather than an operative substitute system: whether to pursue a narrower fallback designed around federal gaps, rely exclusively on restoration of the NLRB, or seek a congressional change authorizing state participation. Workers and employers need somewhere to take a case, but a backup system does little good if courts consistently find that the state cannot legally operate it.