PRIORITIES

Whole Foods Says Employees Wearing ‘Black Lives Matter’ Masks Violate Its Constitutional Rights

The company made the claim in a legal filing after the National Labor Relations Board accused it of illegal practices.

Whole Foods really doesn’t want to let its employees wear Black Lives Matter masks in its stores, claiming its constitutional rights would be violated by the masks. In a Dec. 17 legal filing obtained by Bloomberg that came in response to a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board, the company said it believed the board’s lawyer was trying to “compel” speech by the company in violation of the First Amendment. Whole Foods also believed that, by requiring it to allow employees to wear the masks, its copyright would be infringed by allowing a “political message” to be displayed alongside its logo. The Amazon company declined to comment on its filing, which came two weeks after the NLRB formally accused the company of illegally banning the masks. “Issues of racial harassment and discrimination are central to employees’ working conditions, and the National Labor Relations Act protects employees’ right to advocate for change,” Jill Coffman, the San Francisco regional director who filed the complaint, said in a statement to Bloomberg at the time.