LUEL Statement on the State of the NLRB

The future of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is in jeopardy. The cases by monopoly companies such as Amazon and SpaceX are working their way through the courts. In October, the Firth Circuit of Appeals ordered a stay on NLRB rulings being contested by both companies.

This coincides with President Trump’s appointment of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE is tasked with “tackling government bureaucracy and streamlining processes” of the US Government. This would put the NLRB in its crosshairs as it is supposed to be a check on the autocracy of corporations in the US. Musk’s role in this proposed initiative is a direct conflict of interest considering Musk’s legal fight against the NLRB.

We must ask the question, who elected Musk? How has an oligarch been put into a position to oversee a government apparatus supposedly aimed at being a check on tyrannical rule? Of course, these appointments have been a consistent feature of the US state apparatus, but the appointment of Musk, who spent over $200 million of his own money to get Trump elected, is in effect doing the quiet part out loud. This is an indication of how the NLRB and workers’ rights in general will fare during Trump’s second administration.

To add insult to injury, the Democratic majority during the “lame duck” session of the last Congress failed to re-confirm NLRB Chair, Lauren McFerran, which would have maintained a pro-worker NLRB for the first two years of Trump’s administration. With so-called “friends of labor” like this, who needs enemies? By design, this failure has handed a hobbled NLRB over to a Trump regime hell-bent on stripping away workers’ rights. Now, Trump has fired other members of the NLRB, including General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Former Chair Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the Board without a quorum.

The current situation among the misleaders of labor is an over-reliance on the administrative state to protect the rights which militant rank-and-file workers fought and died for. LUEL exists because we see the imperative for the US labor movement to regain its militancy in a class-oriented fight against capital. Only this can ensure a strong future for both the labor movement and the working-class as a whole in the United States.

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League