Home Depot workers do not have the right to wear Black Lives Matter merchandise or imagery while on the job, a federal judge has ruled.
In his ruling Friday, administrative judge Paul Bogas rejected a complaint from the US National Labor Relations Board that the home improvement retailer violated employees’ rights by barring them from displaying BLM gear, Bloomberg News said in a report.
Bogas wrote that the BLM moniker lacked “an objective and sufficiently direct relationship to terms and conditions of employment.”
BLM’s message “originated and is primarily used to address the unjustified killings of black individuals by law enforcement,” he wrote.
“To the extent the message is being used for reasons beyond that, it operates as a political umbrella for societal concerns and related to the workplace only in the sense that workplaces are part of society,” the judge said.
The labor relations board is entitled to appeal the ruling, Bloomberg said.
The Atlanta-based retailer isn’t the only one cited for BLM-related speech.
The NLRB general counsel has also filed a complaint against Whole Foods Market on similar grounds, claiming that the food peddler’s ban on BLM signs or merchandise worn by employees violates their rights.
That case is part of ongoing deliberations by a judge in San Francisco.
A representative for Home Depot did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post on Sunday.
