The National Labor Relations Board has a new Republican member. At the same time, their chairman announced he is leaving at the end of the year.
In another development, a federal court fired off a stinging rebuke of the previous Obama-era NLRB for going so far in acting as a union advocate as to engage in willful intellectual dishonesty.
The Senate confirmed Trump’s nomination of Marvin E. Kaplan to join the board. He previously was chief counsel to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (AA 6-30-17, P. 4).
Not long after that occurred, Chairman Philip A. Miscimarra announcced that he will not seek renomination when his term ends in December.
The Trump NLRB nomination of labor relations attorney William J. Emanuel awaits confirmation.
With Kaplan joining the board, there now exists a 2-2 tie with the Democrat members. If Emannuel is approved the Republicans will have a 3-2 majority.
Earlier this month, the Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals court refused to enforce an NLRB decision finding that an employer violated labor law after it had union representatives arrested for trespassing at a workplace in clear violation of longstanding contractual terms regarding access.
The court, calling the agency more of an “advocate than adjudicator,” said “the board’s opinion is more disingenuous than dispositive; it evidences a complete failure to reasonably reflect upon the information contained in the record and grapple with contrary evidence – disregarding entirely the need for reasoned decision making.”
The court also slammed the NLRB for stating there was no clearly defined practice regarding the number of union agents allowed in the workplace at the same time when no such finding had been made.
The court called this “pernicious” and added, “The board’s tone deafness – even after the dissent [by Miscimarra] drew attention to the error – is the antithesis of reasoned decision making.”