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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Whole Foods did not violate federal labor law by prohibiting its employees from wearing apparel that said “Black Lives Matter,” handing Amazon’s grocery chain a victory in the yearslong dispute over workplace dress codes.
In a 2-1 decision issued Friday, the Republican-led board found that employees who wore “Black Lives Matter” or “BLM” shirts, accessories, face masks and other items in 2020 were not protesting their working conditions, and therefore the company had the right to prohibit the behavior and discipline workers who refused to remove the items.
The case came about after Whole Foods barred workers from wearing apparel tied to Black Lives Matter, which rose to prominence during nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The board also overturned part of an administrative law judge’s earlier decision that found the company’s former dress code was overly broad.
Whole Foods adopted its dress code policy in 2013 as part of a settlement with the NLRB in an unrelated case. It required employees to wear company-issued shirts without visible slogans, logos or advertising.
David Prouty, the NLRB’s sole Democratic member, dissented on the issue. He argued Whole Foods had overly broadened its policy by removing the word “printed” from its settlement language, allowing the company to ban accessories such as buttons and pins in addition to printed messages on clothing.
The ruling was a departure from another high-profile Black Lives Matter dispute involving Home Depot. In that case, the NLRB ruled against the retail chain in 2024, finding that the retailer unlawfully barred workers at a Minnesota store to remove “BLM” messages from their orange aprons because the employees had linked the messages to complaints about race-based harassment at the workplace.
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