Post-Starbucks v McKinney: Likely to Win, But No Injunction

A Kentucky federal judge handed the NLRB a loss that shows how much the ground has shifted on labor injunctions.

In Taylor v. Hearthside Food Solutions, the Board sought a Section 10(j) temporary injunction against the food manufacturer, alleging it cracked down on a BCTGM organizing drive at its London, Kentucky plant — surveillance, interrogation, calling the police on lawful union activity, and firing and disciplining union supporters. An ALJ had already found twelve violations. The court agreed the Board was likely to win on the merits. It denied the injunction anyway.

Why? Irreparable harm — and the Board couldn’t show it.

This is the post-Starbucks v. McKinney world. In 2024, the Supreme Court told courts to stop giving the NLRB a discount and to apply the same four-factor test everyone else faces: likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of equities, public interest. “Likely to succeed” no longer carries the day on its own.

Two problems sank the Board here. First, its proof of harm leaned almost entirely on hearsay — vague affidavits about “new employees” who were “afraid to get involved.” The court wouldn’t infer irreparable harm from that. Second, delay. The Regional Director waited nearly five months after the ALJ’s decision — over a year from the complaint — to file. As the court put it, that delay “undercuts the sense of urgency” and “suggests that there is, in fact, no irreparable injury.”

Look at post-Starbucks v McKinney like this: The 10(j) injunction was the Board’s fast lever — reinstatement and a frozen campaign before the case is ever decided. McKinney didn’t take it away. It just raised the price of admission.