Trump ousts top National Labor Relations Board leaders who backed broader worker rights

Donald Trump is straining the boundaries of presidential power by dismissing senior U.S. labor board executives and implementing a rapid overhaul of workplace law enforcement.

The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced her dismissal by email late Monday. One of the two Democratic members of the labor board, Gwynne Wilcox, said she was also fired.

In a statement, Wilcox stated, “As the first Black woman on the board, I brought a unique perspective that I believe will be lost upon my unprecedented and illegal removal.” In order to contest my removal, which goes against established Supreme Court precedent, I will be taking all available legal options.

The NLRB, which is in charge of upholding the rights of the majority of private sector American workers to form a union or take collective action to better their working circumstances, has broad discretion over the kind of cases it prosecutes. Peter Robb, a former management-side lawyer who served as Trump’s NLRB general counsel during his first term, used that power to reject cases from Uber Technologies Inc. drivers on the grounds that they didn’t fit the requirements to be considered employees for the purposes of federal labor law.

One of President Joe Biden’s toughest appointees, Abruzzo, had a remarkably broad perspective on workers’ legal rights. She filed lawsuits in an effort to prevent businesses from enforcing forced anti-union meetings, enforcing noncompete agreements, and prohibiting Black Lives Matter emblems. Business organizations like as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized her strategy, accusing her of overreaching in a way that was clearly illegal.

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During the last days of the Biden Administration, Wilcox served as the chair of the NLRB. Members of the NLRB are empowered to make regulations and make decisions about appeals in cases that are prosecuted by the general counsel. Terminating one could lead to legal challenges to subsequent agency decisions because, according to federal law, NLRB members can only be dismissed for negligence or wrongdoing, unlike the general counsel. Businesses have lately claimed that the ban on removing NLRB members is illegal, including SpaceX, which is owned by Trump friend Elon Musk.

A request for comment delivered after regular business hours was not immediately answered by White House officials.

The dismissals are part of Trump’s most recent attempts to fire senior federal officials since he assumed office around a week ago. He has now fired a number of independent inspectors general from several federal agencies and prosecutors connected to an independent counsel investigation into his conduct both during and after his first term.

Clears way

Although Abruzzo’s tenure was supposed to end in July, it was generally anticipated that Trump would fire her after Biden fired Robb on Inauguration Day four years prior. The action makes it possible for the incoming president to appoint a senior NLRB lawyer who might approach the position in a far more business-friendly manner. Trump’s decision may have an impact on the agency’s attempts to hold Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Amazon, accountable for the treatment of subcontracted workers who the businesses maintain are not their employees.

Given that there were already enough open seats on the board for Trump to form a Republican majority in the upcoming months, firing Wilcox was less anticipated. Biden-era precedents that made it easier to unionize and more difficult to terminate workers who protested could be overturned by more management-friendly board members.

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On the campaign trail, Trump said that he would be a friend to union members more than Biden. Former Oregon Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, his choice to head the Department of Labor, is a Republican who is remarkably pro-union and whose campaign was supported by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

However, the NLRB and the Labor Department are two different organizations. Trump appointed industry loyalists to important positions at both agencies during his first term, pushing for reforms that gave corporations more control over employees. He also applauded his supporter Elon Musk’s decision to fire striking employees during his campaign last year. This month, the AFL-CIO president stated that the union federation has been preparing quick response measures to protect federal employees and undocumented workers from Trump administration attacks.

During her three and a half years on the job, Abruzzo filed complaints against numerous well-known American companies, such as the National Collegiate Athletics Association, Apple Inc., Tesla Inc., Starbucks Corp., and the New York Times Co., alleging that they unlawfully misclassified college athletes as non-employees. She filed a case against GEO Group Inc., a private prison business, this month, claiming that it retaliated against immigrant inmates who backed labor strikes by subjecting them to solitary confinement. (The groups have denied any misconduct.)

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The first-ever unionization of one of Amazon’s U.S. warehouses was made possible by a deal she negotiated with the online giant that required the business to permit workers to gather in its break rooms while on vacation.

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I think we ve done a really nice job of educating and empowering workers to speak up, to seek dignity and respect in their workplaces, Abruzzo said in a November interview following Trump s victory. Additionally, I don’t believe they will give up.

Abruzzo stated that more workers may turn to other strategies, like legal or illegal strikes, if the agency fails to adequately enforce workers’ rights. “I believe that employees will take matters into their own hands,” she stated.

— Bloomberg News’ Josh Eidelson

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