New York, Sept. 23 -- Amazon has taken New York to federal court over a new labor law that would let the state's Public Employment Relations Board act as a stand-in when Washington's labor watchdog is stalled, setting up a preemption fight that could redraw the boundary between state initiative and federal supremacy in private-sector labor relations. The complaint, filed in Brooklyn federal court, asks a judge to block enforcement of S.8034A, which Governor Kathy Hochul signed on September 5. In Amazon's telling, the statute is an "unconstitutional power grab" that collides with the National Labor Relations Act and decades of Supreme Court doctrine.

The case arrives amid unusual federal paralysis. With the National Labor Relations Board ...