The US supreme court agreed to consider a challenge by Starbucks to a judicial decision requiring the world’s largest coffee chain to rehire seven union activists in Memphis, Tennessee. A federal agency determined the workers were fired for supporting unionization.
A lower court found that Starbucks – grappling with a wave of unionization across the United States – probably discouraged other employees from exercising their rights under US labor law by dismissing the workers, dubbed the “Memphis Seven”, in 2022.
But Starbucks has appealed the ruling. On Friday, the supreme court agreed to hear its case.
While the coffee giant resisted union efforts for decades, the Memphis store is one of more than 370 of its US outlets unionize since 2021.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that Starbucks “unlawfully fired” the seven employees in Tennessee for their involvement in the union campaign. Its injunction to compel the chain to rehire the employees was granted by the Memphis-based US district judge Sheryl Lipman, and this decision was upheld last year by the sixth US circuit court of appeals based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Starbucks, which has denied wrongdoing, has said the sixth circuit applied too low of a bar by requiring the NLRB to show only that there was “reasonable cause” to believe the company committed labor law violations.
The company says it fired the workers for violating a company safety policy by opening their store without consent, and allowing journalists inside. While it said last year it had rehired the seven employees to comply with Lipman’s order, Starbucks still pursued the appeal of the sixth circuit decision to the supreme court.
In a statement on Friday, Starbucks said: “We are pleased the supreme court has decided to consider our request to level the playing field for all US 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.”
The NLRB declined to comment.
Starbucks Workers United, the union at the heart of the dispute, accused the chain of “seeking a bailout for its illegal union busting” from the supreme court. “With the supreme court agreeing to take up the Memphis case, Starbucks just expanded its war on its own employees to a war on all US workers,” it said. “All working people should be appalled and join our fight to make sure corporations are held accountable to the law.”
Reuters contributed reporting