The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Starbucks in a challenge to a federal judge’s labor law ruling, making it harder for a key federal agency to intervene when a company is accused of illegally suppressing worker organizing.
Eight justices supported the majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a separate opinion that agreed with the overall judgment but disagreed on certain points.
The ruling came in a case involving Starbucks’ firing of seven workers in Memphis who attempted to unionize at a store in 2022. The company said it fired them for allowing a television crew into a closed store. The workers, who called themselves the “Memphis Seven,” said they were fired because of their union organizing efforts and that the company typically did not enforce the rules they were accused of violating.
After the firings, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint saying Starbucks acted because workers “joined or supported the union and engaged in concerted activities and to discourage employees from participating in those activities.” to hold off”. Separately, the board’s lawyers asked a federal judge in Tennessee for a preliminary injunction reinstating the workers, and the judge issued the order in August 2022.
The agency is asking judges to reinstate workers in such cases because the underlying legal issues can take years to resolve, during which time other workers may be discouraged from organizing, even if the fired workers ultimately prevail.
In its petition to the Supreme Court, the company argued that federal courts have different standards when deciding whether to issue temporary restraining orders to reinstate employees, which the NLRB has the authority to do under the National Labor Relations Act.
Some apply a more relaxed standard and require the employment agency to prove that there is “reasonable cause” to believe that the company has violated labor law. Others apply a stricter standard, requiring the board to demonstrate that failure to reinstate the workers would cause “irreparable harm” and that the board would likely prevail in the case. (Some dishes combine elements of the two standards.)
Starbucks argued that the stricter standard for rehiring workers should apply nationwide. The Labor Department argued that the apparent differences between the two standards were semantic and that, in effect, there was already a standard in effect, so Supreme Court intervention was not necessary.
The majority opinion rejected the Board’s argument that the differences between the two standards were semantic. “The standard for reasonable cause goes far beyond simply fine-tuning the traditional criteria,” the majority wrote. “It significantly lowers the hurdle for obtaining an injunction.”
The opinion noted that in cases where other laws allow judges to issue injunctions, the stricter standard has typically been applied. It concluded that there is nothing in employment law to suggest that courts should depart from this approach when it comes to reinstatement of workers.
More than 400 Starbucks stores, representing over 10,000 workers across the United States, have unionized since 2021, and the two sides began nationwide talks on a contract framework in April. Starbucks owns and operates approximately 10,000 stores nationwide.
During arguments in April, the court appeared likely to side with Starbucks, with conservative justices questioning why the NLRB needed a looser standard than other agencies when seeking an injunction.
Thursday’s decision sent the case back to the lower courts.
Legal experts say the injunction is one of the NLRB’s most effective tools to stop companies from illegally suppressing union activity by stopping companies from firing workers who try to organize.
The NLRB filed fewer than 20 injunctions last year. But they serve as an effective deterrent against laid-off workers trying to unionize, said Sharon Block, a Harvard Law School professor and former NLRB member. With a tougher standard to enforce the reinstatement of laid-off workers, more companies could feel empowered to fight union efforts, Ms. Block said.
In her opinion, Judge Jackson agreed that the board would have to show irreparable harm if the workers were not reinstated and would likely prevail on the merits. However, she argued that these were relatively easy to prove in cases where the board sought an injunction.
For example, she argued that it is almost trivial to prove irreparable harm because labor law violations typically take years to be adjudicated. If an employee is laid off and there is no possibility of resolution for several years, she argued, this irrevocably affects the board’s ability to provide relief – relief will inevitably come too late.
Judge Jackson pointed to language in Congress that suggested that other workers might become discouraged and abandon their organizing campaigns, even if the fired worker eventually recovered.
But some believe the agency has made inappropriate use of the injunction in recent years and accuse the NLRB of taking on the role of an advocacy group. Don Schroeder, a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner and an employment lawyer, said the agency has used the injunction too frequently in recent years. He said it should be granted rarely.
“It gives the NLRB a lot of influence when the standard is very low,” Mr. Schroeder said. Granting an injunction is “not like discovering a unicorn,” he added. “At the same time, it shouldn’t be an everyday occurrence.”
Starbucks said it was satisfied with the Supreme Court’s decision. “Consistent federal standards are important to ensure that employees know their rights and consistent labor practices are followed no matter where in the country they work and live,” a company spokesperson said.
He added that the company is committed to securing ratified contracts in unionized stores this year.
Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, the union that represents Starbucks employees, said the decision was unfortunate. “Working people have so few options to protect and defend themselves when their employers break the law,” she said in a statement. “That makes today’s Supreme Court ruling particularly egregious.”
The NLRB did not comment on the ruling, but referred to an earlier comment by its general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. “Without receiving this temporary remedy, the lawbreaker will, over time, reap the full benefits of violating workers’ rights — such as by suppressing a nascent organizing effort,” Ms. Abruzzo said, “because board remedial action is due.” Of course it will come too late to adequately combat the damage.”
The Starbucks case (Starbucks Corporation v. McKinney, No. 23-367) was the latest in a series of challenges to the NLRB’s authority. In February, Amazon argued in a lawsuit that the board itself was unconstitutional, after SpaceX and Trader Joe’s made similar arguments.
The Supreme Court’s ruling also marks the continuation of a larger movement on the political right to strip power not just from the NLRB, but from federal agencies more broadly. In January, it appeared the justices would overturn a key legal doctrine called “Chevron deference.”
Legal experts say repealing that principle, which required judges to defer to federal authorities in interpreting unclear laws passed by Congress, would weaken the government’s regulatory power over the environment, health care and more.
Combined with other cases before the court, “this is another element of the court undermining the expert status of administrative agencies,” Ms. Block said.
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2024-06-13 18:10:17
www.nytimes.com
