July 16 (Reuters) - A U.S. Supreme Court ruling

involving Starbucks ( SBUX ) that raised the bar for the National Labor

Relations Board to win court injunctions against employers won't

discourage the agency from "aggressively seeking" them, general

counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said on Tuesday.

Abruzzo in a memo to field staff said her office's approach

to seeking 10(j) injunctions, named for a provision of federal

labor law, has not changed in the wake of the June ruling that

nixed an order requiring Starbucks ( SBUX ) to reinstate seven Tennessee

workers fired during a union campaign.

The justices in the unanimous ruling settled a circuit split

over the proper test for courts to apply when the NLRB seeks an

injunction pending the outcome of a related administrative case.

The court said the traditional four-part test for

determining whether to issue a preliminary injunction applies to

10(j) petitions by the board, rejecting a more lenient standard

that business groups said unfairly favored the agency. That test

required only that the board show reasonable cause to believe an

employer violated federal labor law and that an injunction would

be "just and proper."

The NLRB general counsel's office acts as a prosecutor in

unfair labor practice cases, bringing claims to administrative

judges and then a five-member board appointed by the president

whose decisions can be appealed to federal appeals courts.

Those layers of review mean that NLRB cases can take years

to resolve, leaving fired workers in limbo. In cases involving

allegations of serious illegal practices, the general counsel

can go to federal court to seek a 10(j) injunction while a case

plays out at the agency. For example, it seeks injunctions that

require employers to rehire workers, restore prior working

conditions, bargain with unions or refrain from engaging in

illegal conduct.

Abruzzo in her memo said several federal appeals courts had

for years already applied the standard adopted in the Starbucks ( SBUX )

case.

"Not only do we have experience litigating under that

standard, Regions have a ... success rate equivalent to or

higher than the success rate in circuit courts that applied the

two-part test," wrote Abruzzo, an appointee of Democratic

President Joe Biden.

Abruzzo in the four-page memo said the board does not seek

injunctions in cases that present novel legal theories or

"without a full evaluation and careful consideration of any

factual conflicts or difficult questions of law."

In a 2022 memo, Abruzzo said court injunctions are one of

the most important tools available to effectively enforce labor

law and can deter businesses from retaliating against union

supporters and discouraging unionization efforts. She encouraged

regional board lawyers to seek them more routinely when

employers allegedly engage in egregious unlawful conduct.

But the NLRB in urging the Supreme Court not to take the

Starbucks ( SBUX ) case said that it had used the tactic sparingly under

Abruzzo - 21 times in 2022, down from as many as 38 times each

year during the Obama administration.

The board since 2022 has sought injunctions in at least a

dozen cases involving Starbucks ( SBUX ), which is facing a nationwide

campaign to unionize its stores. The company has denied

wrongdoing in those cases.

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