U.S. Supreme Court today heard arguments in a case that could have major implications for labor rights.

The court looked at a challenge brought by Starbucks against a lower court decision to reinstate seven baristas and Memphis who were fired by the company

after they announced plans to unionize.

Washington Post Labor reporter Lauren Kauri Gurley is with us. She was at the court today and has been following this case.

Thanks so much for being with us. So Lauren, walk us through the arguments that the

justices heard today and how this is all linked to the Starbucks Union dispute.

When workers in the United States unionize, if they are retaliated against by their

employers, the National Labor Relations Board, the agency, the Federal Agency that oversees workers union rights in the

United States has the right to go to a federal federal court and ask for

immediate relief in the form of forcing a company like Starbucks to

reinstate fired workers.

So that's exactly actually what happened a few years ago at the very beginning of the Starbucks Union Drive that has

now sort of you know spread like wildfire across the country. There are more than

400 Union stores now. Starbucks fired seven union activists

at a Memphis store and a court order

that they had to reinstate them.

Now, Starbucks is arguing that that reinstatement should not have

happened. They said that they fired those workers because they had invited a TV crew into

their store after hours, which was against their policy and they said it was totally

within their right to fire those baristas.

So what Starbucks was challenging today at the Supreme Court was the test that the federal court

used in sort of determining whether they had to that whether they could order the reinstatement of those baristas.

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