Home Depot broke labor law by firing an employee with ‘BLM' on apron, NLRB rules

The National Labor Relations Board ruled that Home Depot violated the law by firing an employee for refusing to remove Black Lives Matter (BLM) messaging from his work apron. In a Home Depot store in Minnesota, workers wrote BLM on the company’s aprons in protest of racial injustice. The NLRB determined this to be a protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Home Depot was found to have interfered with employees’ Section 7 rights and must reinstate the employee and compensate for any loss of earnings. Home Depot disagreed with the decision. A previous ruling by an NLRB administrative law judge in 2022 had differed, but the Board overturned it.