By ZACH SCHONFELD | The Hill
The Supreme Court on Thursday tossed a lower court’s ruling ordering Starbucks to reinstate seven Memphis-based employees terminated amid a unionization drive.
The decision makes it more difficult to immediately block alleged unfair labor practices as they are litigated in a sometimes years-long administrative process. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion on behalf of eight justices, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson partially dissented.
The case arose from the “Memphis Seven,” seven Starbucks employees who were terminated in 2022 during a unionization effort. The employees had publicly posted a letter addressed to the company’s CEO and sat down in the store with a television news crew to discuss the organizing efforts.