Supreme Court steps into Starbucks union fight

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear Starbucks’s appeal of a decision ordering the coffee chain to reinstate seven terminated employees, who were part of a high-profile union drive and became known as the “Memphis Seven.”

With implications for labor organizing more broadly, the justices will take up the case to decide the proper standard for court injunctions requested by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as they battle against employers in administrative proceedings.

The injunctions, aimed at keeping the status quo, have forced companies to reinstate employees, keep facilities open and pause corporate policy changes as the NLRB adjudicates alleged unfair labor practices.

Federal appeals courts have been split on what test the NLRB must clear to receive such an order, however. 

Starbucks, backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business interests, argues that some courts — like the one that ordered the Memphis Seven be reinstated — have been too lenient, emboldening the NLRB to interfere with employers without due cause.

“That split carries enormous consequences for employers nationwide and unacceptably threatens the uniformity of federal labor law,” Starbucks’s attorneys wrote to the justices.

In Memphis, the seven Starbucks employees were terminated after they publicly posted a letter addressed to the company’s CEO and sat down in the store with a television news crew in January 2022 to talk about their union organizing efforts.

The coffee retail giant said it lawfully terminated the employees for breaking the companies’ policies the day of the television interview, including by going behind the counter while off-duty and unlocking a locked door to allow an unauthorized person to enter the store.

A federal district judge in August 2022 ruled in favor of the NLRB, ordering Starbucks to reinstate the workers, and a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel later affirmed the ruling. Starbucks then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The 6th Circuit, along with four other federal appeals courts, grants the NLRB’s injunction requests when they clear a two-factor “reasonable cause” test showing the employer engaged in unfair labor practices.

Four other federal appeals courts employ a four-factor test used in other contexts when parties seek preliminary injunctions, a standard Starbucks argues is higher.

“We are pleased the Supreme Court has decided to consider our request to level the playing field for all U.S. employers by ensuring that a single standard is applied as federal district courts determine whether to grant 10(j) injunctions pursued by the National Labor Relations Board,” Andrew Trull, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement.

Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing workers at the coffee chain, called the injunctions “one of the most effective tools” to hold corporations accountable.

“The world’s biggest coffee company is now using a technicality to align itself with and do the bidding of the billionaire class,” the union said. “Starbucks is on a mission to weaken the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to hold billion dollar corporations accountable for violating the law.”

But, the Justice Department (DOJ) urged the justices to not take the case, rejecting the notion that the different tests contrast.

“The court’s decision does not conflict with any decision of this Court,” the DOJ wrote in court filings. “And although different courts of appeals use different verbal formulations to describe the standard for granting Section 10(j) relief, those terminological distinctions do not warrant this Court’s review.”

The case is likely to be part of the last batch to be heard this term, which would culminate in a decision by the end of June.