Starbucks appears likely to win Supreme Court dispute with federal labor agency

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Starbucks appears likely to win Supreme Court dispute with federal labor agency

2024-04-24 02:52 Last Updated At：03:01

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with Starbucks Tuesday in a case that could make it harder for the federal government to seek injunctions when it suspects a company of interfering in unionization campaigns.

Justices noted during oral arguments that Congress requires the National Labor Relations Board to seek such injunctions in federal court and said that gives the courts the duty to consider several factors, including whether the board would ultimately be successful in its administrative case against a company.

“The district court is an independent check. So it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do, since it was given the authority to do it,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said.

But the NLRB says that since 1947, the National Labor Relations Act — the law that governs the agency — has allowed courts to grant temporary injunctions if it finds a request “just and proper.” The agency says the law doesn't require it to prove other factors and was intended to limit the role of the courts.

The case that made it to the high court began in February 2022, when Starbucks fired seven workers who were trying to unionize their Tennessee store. The NLRB obtained a court order forcing the company to rehire the workers while the case wound its way through the agency's administrative proceedings. Such proceedings can take up to two years.

A district court judge agreed with the NLRB and issued a temporary injunction ordering Starbucks to rehire the workers in August 2022. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, Starbucks appealed to the Supreme Court.

Five of the seven workers are still employed at the Memphis store, while the other two remain involved with the organizing effort, according to Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers. The Memphis store voted to unionize in June 2022.

Starbucks asked the Supreme Court to intervene because it says federal appeals courts don’t agree on the standards the NLRB must meet when it requests a temporary injunction against a company.

In its review of what transpired at the Starbucks store in Memphis, the Sixth Circuit required the NLRB to establish two things: that it had reasonable cause to believe unfair labor practices occurred and that a restraining order would be a “just and proper” solution.

But other federal appeals courts have required the NLRB to meet a tougher, four-factor test used when other federal agencies seek restraining orders, including showing it was likely to prevail in the administrative case and that employees would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to agree with the NLRB's argument that Congress meant for the agency to operate under a different standard.

She noted the NLRB has already determined it is likely to prevail in a case by the time it seeks an injunction. And she noted that injunctions are very rare. In the NLRB's 2023 fiscal year, it received 19,869 charges of unfair labor practices but authorized the filing of just 14 cases seeking temporary injunctions.

“I appreciate that maybe the standards we need to look at, and I understand four factors versus two factors, but this is not sounding like a huge problem," Jackson said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered aloud if whatever the Supreme Court decides will be moot since the injunction would have expired and an NLRB judge may have ruled in the Starbucks' case by the time the court's decision is published.

But she also seemed to agree that the courts should have a clearer role in NLRB cases.

“It’s the court that has to decide the likelihood of merit," Sotomayor said.

The oral arguments took place even as the animosity between Workers United and Starbucks has begun to fade. The two sides announced in February that they would restart talks with the aim of reaching contract agreements this year. Starbucks and union representatives planned to meet Wednesday for their first bargaining session in nearly a year.

Workers at 424 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late 2021, according to the NLRB, but none of those stores has secured a labor agreement with Starbucks.

Durbin reported from Detroit.

Paris Olympics kicks off with ambitious but rainy opening ceremony on the Seine River

2024-07-27 04:27 Last Updated At：04:32

PARIS (AP) — Celebrating its reputation as a cradle of revolution, Paris kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century on Friday with a rain-soaked, rule-breaking opening ceremony studded with stars and fantasy along the Seine River.

On-and-off showers — the first rain at a Summer Olympics' opening ceremony in more than 70 years — did not seem to hamper the enthusiasm of the athletes. Some held umbrellas as they rode boats down the river in a showcase of the city’s resilience as authorities investigated suspected acts of sabotage targeting France's high-speed rail network.

Widespread travel disruptions triggered by what French officials called coordinated arson attacks on high-speed rail lines as well as the weather had dampened the mood ahead of the ceremony.

Still, crowds crammed the Seine's banks and bridges and watched from balconies, “oohing” and “aahing” as Olympic teams paraded in boats down the waterway that got increasingly choppy as the weather worsened. Undeterred from the festivities, many of the hundreds of thousands of spectators huddled under umbrellas and jackets as the rain intensified, others danced and sang, and some dashed from their seats for shelter.

“The rain can't stop us,” said U.S. basketball star LeBron James, sporting a plastic poncho along with the other American flag bearer, tennis player Coco Gauff.

The rain made for some bizarre scenes at the show combining prerecorded and live performances: a stiff upper-lipped pianist played on even as small puddles formed on his grand piano. A breakdancer flipped her moves on the sheen of a rain-drenched platform. Some athletes in Bermuda-style colorful shirts looked dressed for the beach, not a deluge.

As global audiences tuned in, Paris put its best foot forward — quite literally, with a spectacular Olympic launch that lifted spirits and joyous French cancan dancers featured early on. A humorous short film featured soccer icon Zinedine Zidane. Plumes of French blue, white and red smoke followed. And Lady Gaga sang, in French, with dancers shaking pink plumed pompoms, adding a cabaret feel to what is expected to be a more than three-hour show.

French-Malian pop star Aya Nakamura, the most listened-to French-speaking artist in the world, sang her hit “Djadja” accompanied by the orchestra of the French Republican Guard. She emerged from a pyrotechnic display, wearing an all-gold outfit as she performed with a Republican guard band of the French army.

Merging the elements of opera and rock metal music on the global stage, band Gojira brought their progressive and technical death metal style, while singer Marina Viotti inserted her mezzo-soprano vocals.

A singer resplendently dressed in the French colors of blue, white and red belted out France's national anthem, La Marseillaise, from the iron- and glass-domed roof of the Grand Palais, the venue for fencing and taekwondo. In the VIP section further along the river, French President Emmanuel Macron and others stood as she sang.

The ceremony celebrated women, including 10 golden statues of female pioneers that rose from giant pedestals along the river. Among them was Olympe de Gouges, who drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen in 1791 during the French Revolution. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and was guillotined in 1793.

The statues will be offered to the city after the ceremony. The Paris Games aim to be the first with equal numbers of men and women competing.

With the ambitious ceremony, the stakes for France were immense. Dozens of heads of state and government were in town, and the world was watching as Paris turned itself into a giant open-air theater. Along the Siene, iconic monuments became stages for dancers, singers and other artists.

The sprawling ceremony gave organizers bigger crowds to transport, organize and safeguard than would have been the case if they’d followed the example of previous Olympic host cities that opened with stadium shows.

Still, as the show got underway, optimism soared that Paris – true to its motto that speaks of being unsinkable – might just see its gambles pay off. That's despite the soggy weather — no other Summer Olympics opening ceremony has had rain since Helsinki in 1952.

Paris organizers said 6,800 of the 10,500 athletes would attend before they embark on the next 16 days of competition.

The boats carrying the Olympic teams started the parade by breaking through curtains of water that cascaded down from Austerlitz Bridge, the start of the 6-kilometer (nearly 4-mile) parade route. The jetting waters were a wink at the splendid fountains of Versailles Palace, now the venue for Olympic equestrian competitions.

Per Olympic protocol, the first boat carried athletes from Greece, birthplace of the ancient Games. It was followed by the Olympic team of refugee athletes and then, the other nations in French alphabetical order.

Usually during Olympic opening ceremonies, the parade of athletes takes place during a pause in the razzmatazz. But Paris shattered that tradition by having the parade and pageantry at the same time, blending sports and artistic expression.

Some spectators who followed organizers’ advice to arrive well ahead of time along the ceremony route fumed over long waits to get to their seats.

“Paris has been great, anything to do with the Olympics and dissemination of information has been horrible,” said Tony Gawne, a 54-year-old Texan who turned up six hours in advance with his wife.

“When you spend $6,000 on two tickets, well, that’s a little frustrating,” he said.

But Paris had plenty of aces up its sleeve. The Eiffel Tower, its head still visible below the clouds, Notre Dame Cathedral — restored from the ashes of its 2019 fire — the Louvre Museum and other iconic monuments starred in the opening ceremony. Award-winning theater director Thomas Jolly, the show’s creative mind, was using the signature Paris cityscape of zinc-grey rooftops as the playground for his imagination.

His task: Tell the story of France, its people, their history and essence in a way that leaves an indelible imprint on Olympic audiences. Refresh the image and self-confidence of the French capital that was repeatedly struck by deadly extremist attacks in 2015. Capture how Paris is also aiming to reboot the Olympics, with Summer Games it has worked to make more appealing and sustainable.

It’s a big ask. So Paris went big, very big. That goes for the security, too. Large fenced-off stretches of central Paris were locked down to those without passes and the skies during the ceremony were a no-fly zone for 150 kilometers (93 miles) around.

Many details of the spectacle that stretched into the Paris night were closely guarded secrets to preserve the wow factor, including who would light the Olympic cauldron.

During the athletes’ waterborne adventure, they passed historic landmarks that have been temporarily transformed into arenas for Olympic sports.

Concorde Plaza, where French revolutionaries guillotined King Louis XVI and other royals, now hosting skateboarding and other sports. The golden-domed resting place of Napoléon Bonaparte, the backdrop for Olympic archery, and the Eiffel Tower, which donated chunks of iron that have been inlaid in the gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals. They’ll be won in the 32 sports’ 329 medal events.

Paris’ aim, said Estanguet, is “to show to the whole world and to all of the French that in this country, we’re capable of exceptional things.”

AP journalists Megan Janetsky and Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.