The US Supreme Court has recently confirmed that it will hear the case concerning the dismissal of employees working at Starbucks, who were seeking to unionize; the case is known as Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney. The crux of the Supreme Court review will be to establish the legal standard by which courts should assess National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) preliminary injunction decisions.
The roots of this case stretch back to 2022 when Starbucks management was accused of firing seven employees based in Memphis, TN. These workers were trying to organize a union, but their efforts were reportedly opposed by the company. After being dismissed, the workers filed a complaint with the NLRB. As a consequence, the NLRB itself subsequently lodged a petition with the US District Court Western District of Tennessee, seeking immediate reinstatement for the employees and injunctive relief under Sections 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
The Tennessee Court opted for the more lenient approach used when considering the justification for preliminary injunctions, only offered to the NLRB under Section 10(j) of the NLRA. Accordingly, it issued a preliminary injunction directing Starbucks to restore the employment of the workers. Starbucks subsequently contacted the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to contest the decision, arguing that the lower court should have used the traditional four-factor preliminary injunction test instead of the more lenient NLRB version. The appeal court upheld the initial decision, but the concurring opinion suggested a shift in federal appellate courts’ attitude towards NLRB preliminary injunctions.
The focus will now shift to the Supreme Court, as details of the case are laid out, and the court is asked to decide which test should be used by courts when they are asked to review NLRB preliminary injunctions. This case arises in the context of a sequence of scandals concerning Starbucks’ treatment of its employees seeking to form a union. Other cases include the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s suit against Starbucks over the firing of a barista attempting to unionize, as well as an NLRB ruling that Starbucks wrongfully terminated two workers in Philadelphia, PA, who were also trying to unionize.
The broader context for this legal challenge reveals a significant number of worker actions nationwide over the past few years. These include strikes by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America in 2023. The Cornell ILR School Labor Action Tracker currently estimates that there are approximately 1136 ongoing labor actions across the US.
Legal professionals are keeping a keen eye on the unfolding of this case, as the Supreme Court’s decision will have significant implications for labor law and the rights of workers to unionize, and how corporations like Starbucks respond to such movements. With the case now in the hands of the Supreme Court, only time will tell what the legal landscape will look like for American labor movements.
For more detailed coverage of this story, please refer to the JURIST article.