After the encounter, according to Mr. Coleman, the company rescinded a free trip to Puerto Rico he had won for his job performance.

He was fired in May 2013 after publicly criticizing T-Mobile over its labor policies. He says that the company destroyed a notebook in which he kept details of his organizing activities.

When asked about Mr. Coleman’s case, T-Mobile responded that “there are no allegations that any employee has been impacted by these policies.”

That is technically true, but incomplete: The individual complaints did not appear before Judge Dibble because every T-Mobile employee who has filed a complaint with the N.L.R.B., like Mr. Coleman, has settled with the company, many of them for tens of thousands of dollars.

“It was not possible for the judge to look at any of those allegations,” said Guerino J. Calemine, general counsel of the Communications Workers of America, which helped bring the complaints. “She was only looking at the policies themselves.”

Moreover, Professor McCartin said that even if the judge could not rule that any specific employee was affected by the policies, she found that T-Mobile workers as a class were affected.

T-Mobile must now decide whether or not to appeal the decision to the National Labor Relations Board. If the company loses before the board, it could then appeal in federal court.