Starbucks Loses Appeal in Case on Handing Out Union Pins (1)

Starbucks Corp. lost its court challenge to a labor board ruling that a manager at one of the coffee giant’s Seattle locations imposed unlawfully broad restrictions on handing out union pins.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Thursday rejected Starbucks’ argument that the manager’s statements were permissible because they were limited to giving pins to customers on the selling floor—rather than illegally amounting to a pin ban covering the entire store as the National Labor Relations Board found.

“Even if Starbucks’ interpretation is reasonable, that is all it is—an interpretation,” the court said in ...