Firm: Williams & Connolly
Issue Area: Workers’ Rights & Union Busting
Williams & Connolly represented Starbucks in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, a fight over whether the company had to rehire seven Memphis baristas it fired in the middle of a union drive. In January 2022, workers organizing with Workers United invited a local TV news crew into their store after hours to talk about their campaign. Starbucks then fired seven of them, including five members of the store's union organizing committee. The fired workers became known as the Memphis Seven. Starbucks appealed that order all the way to the Supreme Court, with Williams & Connolly partner Lisa Blatt as lead counsel. In an 9–0 decision, the Court sided with Starbucks, making it harder for courts to grant preliminary injunctions requested by the NLRB.