NLRB preserves favored precedents; Board to remain with no quorum

Although the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) remains without a quorum and, thus, cannot issue any final rulings, the reimagined Board hasn’t been idle in marking out its new operating principles.

Functionally eliminated

Many believed that a newly reconstituted, Republican-dominated NLRB would vigorously attack the numerous pro-union precedents issued by the Biden-Abruzzo Board because Republicans viewed many of those decisions as a radical rewriting of traditional labor law and they were bitterly opposed by the administration’s business supporters. 

Instead, President Trump has elected to functionally eliminate the NLRB as a fully operating agency by leaving it with only two members. Without a quorum, the Board cannot issue final rulings on any matter before it, from election certifications to unfair labor practice charges. However, the Board is not without tools to influence labor-management relations, the most significant of which is prosecutorial discretion, as expressed through the actions of the General Counsel (GC).

Former GC Jennifer Abruzzo had identified many existing Board rulings as targets for “reform.” Although she enabled the Board to issue nearly two dozen precedent-making decisions, many others remained on the “target list.” Some of those cases are no longer targets. In sum, NLRB prosecutors are no longer looking to attack four employer-friendly rulings that the prior Board had sought to overturn.

Pro-employer rulings no longer at risk