Supreme Court seems to side with Starbucks’ ruling challenge

The Supreme Court justices Tuesday appeared willing to side with Starbucks in the company’s challenge to a federal judge’s order to reinstate workers who were attempting to unionize a store in Memphis, Tennessee.

Starbucks has asked the court to make it harder for the National Labor Relations Board to obtain intervention by judges in cases where a company is accused of violating labor law. The case stems from the February 2022 firing of seven workers who let local journalists into a closed store to conduct interviews about their unionization efforts.

If Starbucks prevails, it would be more difficult for workers to be reinstated if they’re fired during a labor dispute. The case is being heard a day before Starbucks is set to return to the bargaining table with the union that represents about 10,000 of its workers after a contentious, monthslong impasse.

A majority of the justices seemed sympathetic to Starbucks’ argument for a more rigorous test for allowing the labor board to reinstate workers. Through their questioning, the justices appeared to see the looser standard that the NLRB was given in that case as an outlier.

Starbucks, which has faced hundreds of accusations of labor law violations across the country, argued that there is a patchwork of standards under which the NLRB can seek a court injunction. The appellate court in the case, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, applies a lower standard, and Starbucks argued Tuesday for a stricter, uniform standard nationwide.

Starbucks said the workers were fired because admitting the journalists into the store violated several company policies. Starbucks Workers United, the union representing the company’s workers, filed an unfair labor practice charge over the firings, arguing that the company selectively enforced the rules against organized workers. The labor board issued a complaint against Starbucks two months later.