The Supreme Court sided with Starbucks on Thursday in a decision that could make it harder for labor prosecutors to win court injunctions against employers they believe to have broken the law.

The case, McKinney v. Starbucks, revolved around the firings of seven baristas amid a union organizing campaign at a store in Memphis, Tennessee. The National Labor Relations Board secured an injunction in federal court requiring Starbucks to temporarily hire the baristas back while the underlying union-busting allegations were being litigated.

Starbucks had maintained that the firings were justified, and argued before the Supreme Court that the criteria the federal court used to evaluate the injunction request were too lax. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the 8-1 decision for the court. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a partial dissent.

The case is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on labor law because of its relatively limited scope. But the decision fits into a broader pattern, as the courts right wing has sided with corporations and sought to limit the power of federal agencies to intervene on behalf of consumers, workers or the environment.

Lynne Fox, the president of Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks, said in a statement on the decision that workers have so few tools to defend themselves when employers break the law.

That makes todays ruling by the Supreme Court particularly egregious, Fox said. It underscores how the economy is rigged against working people all the way up to the Supreme Court.

The NLRB is an independent federal agency responsible for enforcing collective bargaining rights in the private sector. Its prosecutors bring cases against employers and unions when workers rights have been violated, with a five-member board in Washington that hears cases on appeal.

But when prosecutors believe the normal process cant adequately protect workers, they sometimes ask federal judges to issue temporary injunctions to stop allegedly illegal labor practices. NLRB lawyers pursued such an order against Starbucks in the Memphis case, arguing that the ouster of several union supporters was illegal and could do irreparable damage to an active organizing campaign if it wasnt quickly rectified.

Courts have been split on which factors should be used to determine whether an injunction is warranted. The federal judge in the Starbucks case applied a lower level of scrutiny than what the Supreme Court endorsed, meaning the labor board will need to satisfy a higher standard in order to get future injunctions against businesses.

The Starbucks case is part of the Supreme Courts larger shift against deference to federal agencies. In a separate case this term, the court is re-examining whats known as the landmark Chevron doctrine, which gives federal agencies latitude to interpret laws and issue regulations where Congress may have been ambiguous.

In oral arguments the conservative bloc seemed poised to overturn the Chevron precedent. Such a decision would make it harder for agencies to enact regulations and give courts greater power to strike them down a blow to any progressive administration hoping to tackle pressing issues like climate change through regulatory power.