WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear Starbuck’s appeal of a judge’s decision requiring the company to rehire a group of seven pro-union employees.
The case involves a group of Starbucks employees who worked at a store in Memphis, known as the “Memphis Seven.” In January 2022, a union organizing drive was started at the store. In response, Starbucks allegedly used tactics to stifle the drive that ended in the seven employees being fired. The union then filed unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, and alleged that Starbucks had unlawfully interfered with the employees’ right to form a union.
After investigating, an NLRB regional director issued an unfair labor practice complaint. The agency then sought an injunction to get the company to rehire the employees, under section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act. A U.S. district court judge granted the injunction and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision.
Starbucks said the workers were fired for violating company policy when they invited local journalists into a closed store and appealed the case to the high court.
At issue is the standard courts should use when making decisions about a labor dispute.
In a statement, the company said that it is asking the Supreme Court to “level the playing field” for employers and unions.
“Starbucks is asking the Supreme Court to level the playing field for all U.S. employers by ensuring that the traditional rules for preliminary injunctions for any agency apply when federal district courts consider the NLRB’s requests for extraordinary 10(j) injunctions in the future,” said Starbucks spokesperson Rachel Wall, in the company statement.
Starbucks has also said that the case is narrow and is driven by a split at the federal district court level.
“So Starbucks is asking the Supreme Court to essentially force the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, to follow the same criteria to obtain a preliminary injunction that every other federal agency has to follow,” said Mark Chenoweth, President and Chief Legal Officer of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal group that filed an amicus brief in the case in support of Starbucks.
“It’s very easy for them to get a preliminary injunction or certainly far easier than it is for any other federal agency. And that just really has an effect on making the playing field unlevel,” said Chenoweth.
Smita Ghosh is with the Constitutional Accountability Center, another group that filed amicus brief in support of the National Labor Relations Board, says that the standard that Starbucks is pushing for ignores much of the history of federal labor law.
Ghosh said that back in the 1930s and 1940s when Congress was writing and revising labor law, they wanted to limit the court’s role and did not want federal judges to look into strikes and issue injunctions to prevent labor unrest.
“It ended up being a practice that really aggravated violence and kind of disputes between labor and management,” said Ghosh. “So Congress chose another way, which was this federal agency, which is why the government standard, which involves a little bit of deference to that agency, is appropriate.”
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