In today’s news and commentary, the Fourth Circuit rejected a broad reading of the NLRA’s managerial exception, the Office of Personnel Management is cancelling a reduced tuition program for federal employees, Starbucks will pay $39 million for violating New York City’s Fair Workweek law, and Mamdani and Sanders joined striking baristas outside a Brooklyn Starbucks.

On Monday, the Fourth Circuit construed the scope of the NLRA’s managerial exception narrowly, leaving in place the NLRB’s ruling against a security company. The dispute arose when Michael Macri, a firearms instructor at Constellis Inc., raised concerns about a firing-range defect that caused bullets to “ricochet back toward shooters.” Macri was later terminated for alleged “insubordination,” and Constellis argued that Macri was excluded from NLRA coverage under the managerial employee exception, based on the Supreme Court’s holding in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace (1974). In the Fourth Circuit’s first decision addressing the exception, the unanimous three-judge panel joined its sister circuits in construing the court-made exception narrowly. Writing for the panel, Judge Nicole Berner observed that not only did Macri lack the power to select trainees or independently discipline students, but he also had neither the ability nor the authority to resolve the ricochet problem himself. Consequently, Macri had to bring those concerns to the attention of those with the power to address the issue—actions that “demonstrate the importance of the NLRA’s protection of those engaging in concerted activity.”

Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced it was cancelling the Federal Academic Alliance—a program that provided federal employees with tuition discounts at participating colleges and universities. The Alliance was established in 2014 to address critical skills gaps in the federal workforce as well as expand opportunities for federal employees to pursue post-secondary education. In a December 1 memo, the agency said it was sunsetting the Alliance in order to streamline governmentwide learning offerings, reduce administrative burden, and align benefits with agency authorities and resources. The announcement noted that employees already enrolled under Alliance arrangements will be able to continue through the end of their current academic term, but anything beyond that would be “subject to standard agency authorities and policies.” Although the memo also states that training will remain available with supervisor approval consistent with 5 CFR part 410, it’s hard to say what this will mean in practice: without a single governmentwide program, employees’ access to education benefits will likely become more uneven and will depend on agency budgets and managers’ willingness to treat coursework as mission-related training.

In other news, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a $38.9 million settlement with Starbucks after a multi-year investigation into alleged violations of New York City’s Fair Workweek protections for fast-food workers. Under that 2017 law, employers are required to provide fast-food workers with predictable schedules, offer available hours to existing staff before hiring new workers, and refrain from cutting a worker’s hours by more than 15% without “just cause” or another legitimate business reason. The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found that Starbucks had violated several of the law’s provisions, including its scheduling and hours-reduction requirements. In a company statement, Starbucks said it takes the Fair Workweek law’s requirements “seriously,” but argued that the law creates “real-world challenges” and “treats almost any adjustment as a potential issue.”

Finally, New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Senator Bernie Sanders joined striking workers at a Brooklyn Starbucks. Mamdani criticized Starbucks’ outsized executive payouts and its long track record of labor-law violations, condemning what he described as the company’s “corporate greed and self-enrichment” at workers’ expense. Starbucks Workers United—which represents over 11,000 baristas nationwide—authorized a strike on November 13, calling for higher wages, more predictable schedules, and resolution of hundreds of pending unfair labor practice charges. In his remarks, Mamdani reiterated his support for organized labor, calling for “a New York where every worker can live a life of decency,” and “where the workers who power it are able to afford to live in it.”