A complaint by US labor board prosecutors against Home Depot Inc. — for allegedly interfering with workers’ rights to protest against racial harassment — should be dismissed, an agency judge ruled Friday.

The US National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel had alleged that the company violated federal labor law by preventing staff from displaying the message “Black Lives Matter” on their aprons, as well as by threatening and punishing employees to discourage collective action.

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In his ruling Friday, administrative law judge Paul Bogas wrote that Black Lives Matter messaging lacked “an objective, and sufficiently direct, relationship to terms and conditions of employment” to be legally protected.

{snip} “To the extent the message is being used for reasons beyond that, it operates as a political umbrella for societal concerns and relates to the workplace only in the sense that workplaces are part of society.”

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