SCOTUS and CEOs continue attacks on workers
What’s going on?
A Starbucks in Memphis fired workers who were leading an effort to unionize their workplace. A court declared that action illegal and ordered the workers reinstated, but Starbucks appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided that it should be harder for a court to order reinstatement.
Wait. Isn’t it illegal to fire workers who organize?
Yes. It is illegal. However, an employer who illegally fires a worker for organizing knows that it will be several years before they can be forced to rehire an illegally fired worker. In the meantime, workers see that a leader in the organizing fight was fired with seemingly no penalty for the employer, souring workers on the organizing fight.
In egregious cases, however, the agency that enforces workers’ organizing rights – the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – can ask a court to immediately reinstate the worker while the legal proceedings continue.
If a fired worker is reinstated soon after a retaliation, it provides all workers a greater sense of security and shows that unionization can actually protect them from arbitrary firing. In turn, CEOs are less likely to retaliate.
What does the decision mean?
The main danger is that anti-worker judges may feel emboldened to reject requests to reinstate workers. Meanwhile, the NLRB may not have sufficient resources to continue enforcing reinstatement.
Starbucks and other companies are arguing that the whole system protecting workers is unconstitutional. Is that on the table in this case?
It is true that companies run by some of the richest executives in the world have argued that the National Labor Relations Board is “unconstitutional”.
The case the Supreme Court decided this month does not directly involve that issue. However, the same set of circumstances are involved in this case. CEOs are feeling the heat. Workers are fed up and demanding more power in our economy. Poll after poll reveals the majority of Americans support labor unions. And a wave of new organizing—from baristas at Starbucks and delivery drivers at Amazon to Southern autoworkers and Waffle House cooks— workers continue to threaten the status quo. CEOs want to stop this revived worker power in its tracks.
These same CEOs view the Supreme Court as one of their strongest levers of power. The majority of the Supreme Court has been eager to roll back hard-fought, basic human rights. They’ve declared that corporations are people with a constitutional right to buy elections, gutted the Voting Rights Act under the pre-Civil War rallying cry of “states' rights”, and ensured that the Constitution does not protect life-saving reproductive care.
CEOs and their lawyers think this is the perfect time to use the Supreme Court to choke off union organizing before it becomes even more widespread.
Are these cases connected?
Yes. Morgan Lewis, the law firm that has argued that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, filed a brief in this case, too. Several organizations funded by the Koch Brothers and other billionaires have also filed arguments in this case.
So, what now?
Keep organizing, close ranks, and continue to show up in solidarity with one another. Workers have always and will continue to organize for an equal share of the profits they create, regardless of conservative courts, bad legislation, and billionaires.
