Supreme Court Appears Likely to Side with Starbucks in Labor Dispute Case

If we are to take comments and questions by the Supreme Court justices as a hint of how their opinion will fall in a case, it is not good news for union organizers.

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments centered around Starbucks employees who were allegedly terminated for trying to unionize a store in Tennessee.

By all accounts, the justices seem ready to pull the trigger in favor of Starbucks.

The Case

There are very strict rules on the rights of both employees and employers regarding union organization.

Unions have been trying to crack Starbucks for quite some time, and staffers at this particular store were a bit more aggressive than the law permits.

According to reports, the staffers allowed TV news crews into the store after closing so they could conduct staff interviews about the possible unionization of the store.

The store fired them regarding security concerns, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sided with the staffers, saying this was retaliation for their efforts to unionize the shop.

Among others, Justice Gorsuch challenged why the NLRB had given so much leeway in regard to union organizers being rehired after termination.

He asked, "In all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don't do this… So why is this particular statutory regime different than so many others?"

Liberal justices seemed sympathetic to the union organizers, which is to be expected, but they don’t have the numbers to win this decision if the conservative justices are all on the same page.

From my experience in the hospitality industry, this seems like an open and shut case in favor of Starbucks, and it does appear that the conservative justices share this view.

This would be a considerable blow to the union movement trying to crack through against Starbucks, where roughly four percent of the stores in this country have voted in favor of unionization.