Workers at Starbucks's flagship Manhattan store can wear only a handful of pre-approved shirts and pins supporting causes like World AIDS Day, Black Lives Matter, military veterans, and Hispanic Heritage Month — but not union t-shirts or multiple pro-union pins. That restriction just survived a major legal challenge after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the policy did not violate the labor rights of the store's unionized workers.
The court reversed a 2024 finding by the National Labor Relations Board that Starbucks had broken the law by restricting union-supporting shirts and pins at the Meatpacking District Reserve Roastery, according to WTAQ. The 23,000-square-foot store, which includes an on-site roastery, a bakery, retail space, and coffee and cocktail bars, unionized in 2022. Since then, workers at roughly 700 other U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to join unions, and workers there have filed hundreds of complaints with the labor board, per the same report.
Starbucks told the 2nd Circuit during oral arguments in November that the Manhattan Reserve Roastery relies on a distinct “steampunk, hipster chic” aesthetic, and that employee appearance is central to the customer experience the company is trying to sell, according to Courthouse News Service. Workers at the store wear brown aprons and muted-color collared shirts or turtlenecks as part of that look.
Board Says Balancing Test Failed
The three-judge appeals panel found that the labor board failed to properly weigh Starbucks's preferred customer image against workers' union-organizing rights, per WTAQ's report. The panel sent the case back to the board for what it called a more evenly measured balancing test, and it said the special-circumstances standard the board had applied made many common workplace dress codes illegal.
The legal question at the heart of the dispute traces back to the 1945 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, which established that workers generally have a protected right to display union symbols unless special business circumstances justify limiting that right, according to Justia. That same 2nd Circuit had already established, in a 2012 ruling, that Starbucks could limit public-facing employees to a single pro-union button on their aprons to preserve its visual brand identity.
NLRB's Tesla Standard Keeps Losing in Court
The board's approach in the Manhattan case grew out of its August 2022 ruling in Tesla, Inc., when a then-Democratic-majority NLRB declared that any employer dress code restricting union apparel is presumptively unlawful unless the company proves special circumstances, according to the National Labor Relations Board. That standard overturned an earlier 2019 precedent that had given employers more flexibility for neutral uniform rules, and Starbucks failed to show a legitimate justification for its dress-code policies under that framework when the board first ruled against the company in 2024, per WTAQ.
Federal appeals courts have increasingly rejected that presumption. In November 2023, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously vacated the Tesla ruling, holding that the board lacked authority to declare all neutral uniform rules presumptively illegal, according to Justia. A different court had already ruled that year that Tesla could bar California factory workers from wearing union t-shirts. Then in November 2025, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Home Depot after a St. Louis-based panel found the retailer could lawfully bar a Minnesota employee from writing Black Lives Matter on an orange work apron, citing safety and public-image concerns following local civil unrest.
Eighth Showdown in Federal Court
The Manhattan dress-code case marked the eighth time in two and a half years that Starbucks and the labor board have squared off in federal appeals court, according to OnLabor. The NLRB now holds a 3-1 Republican majority appointed by President Donald Trump, a shift from the Democratic majority that first decided the Manhattan case in 2024. Neither Starbucks nor the labor board immediately responded to requests for comment, per WTAQ's report.
Lower labor judges have already begun applying the 2nd Circuit's reasoning elsewhere. In March 2026, an NLRB administrative law judge dismissed unfair labor practice charges against Starbucks in Chicago, finding that a dress code allowing one union pin was facially lawful under the circuit's precedent, according to NLRB Edge. That Chicago case involved a unionized store where workers were sent home for refusing to remove union t-shirts. As of early 2026, formal contract negotiations between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United remained stalled across more than 500 unionized U.S. stores, with zero store-level agreements ratified despite more than 10,000 workers voting to join the union since late 2021.
The Manhattan ruling arrives months after a separate Fifth Circuit win for Starbucks, in which that court vacated an NLRB decision declaring the company's subpoenas of unionized workers unlawful during a California labor dispute. Together with the Chicago and Home Depot rulings, the outcome fits a broader pattern of federal appellate courts pushing back against the labor board's expanded view of workplace speech rights, even as the underlying fight over first contracts for thousands of Starbucks baristas nationwide remains unresolved.
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