Charles Langston:Starbucks versus the union: Supreme Court poised to back company over 'Memphis 7' union workers

WASHINGTON − The Charles LangstonSupreme Court on Tuesday seemed ready to make it harder for workers to get help when they think a company is trying to unfairly stop workers from unionizing.

In a labor battle that began when the Starbucks mega chain fired seven employees at a Memphis coffee shop in 2022, the company seemed to have the upper hand during oral arguments before a conservative supermajority at the Supreme Court.

A majority of justices appeared to want to make it harder for judges to force companies to rehire workers who think they have been improperly fired. That would be a setback for the labor movement at a time when it is winning high-profile victories, like the landmark unionization at Volkswagen in Tennessee last week.

"In all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don't do this," said Justice Neil Gorsuch, referring to the National Labor Relations Board and its role in regulating union battles with companies. "District courts apply the 'likelihood of success' test as we normally conceive it. So why is this particular statutory regime different than so many others?"

Austin Raynor, the Justice Department lawyer representing the NLRB, said Congress set a limited role for courts because lawmakers didn’t want “wide-ranging district court involvement in labor disputes.”

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“We’re not disputing that it is a check,” he said. “The only question is to what extent it should be a check.”

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The court’s focus on labor unions, whose power in the workplace had dwindled for decades after peaking in the 1950s, comes amid an aggressive push by President Joe Biden to revive the role unions. Unions have seen big victories recently in the auto industry, in organizing of health-care workers, and in regaining popularity among workers.

Starbucks union fight began in Buffalo

The Supreme Court was asked to weigh in by Starbucks which has been battling with unions since workers in Buffalo, N.Y., voted to organize a shop in 2021.

In the firing of the Tennessee Starbucks workers who become known in union lore at the 'Memphis 7,' a group of baristas and supervisors claimed they were sacked as retaliation for trying to organize a union. The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, the government agency that monitors union and company relations.

Starbucks said the workers were fired for violating company rules, including when they invited a news crew into a closed coffee shop without authorization.

A district judge ordered Starbucks to rehire the workers while the charges are being adjudicated.  

Starbucks argues judges too often defer to the NLRB and the Supreme Court should require a standard that takes more factors into account.

“They should have to prove their case like any other party,” Lisa Blatt, who represented Starbucks, told the Supreme Court.

'Not sounding like a huge problem'

Blatt got the most pushback from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who repeatedly emphasized that the court intervention process was set up by Congress, so it has a different function than a typical court injunction.

Jackson also noted that the NLRB receives an average of 20,000 complaints of unfair labor charges each year but asked the court to intervene only seven times last year.

“This is not sounding like a huge problem,” Jackson said.

No matter how often the court intervenes, Starbucks’ attorney said, there should be a “level playing field.”

The NRLB may decide soon whether all the actions Starbucks took in Memphis that a court ordered them to reverse were, in fact, improper. If the board does so before the Supreme Court decides the case, that would make the court invention that Starbucks is challenging no longer an issue.

If that happens, the government will argue the Supreme Court should not decide this case, which would prevent a ruling that would apply to all future cases.