UE: Senate Hands Control of Labor Board to Big Business Interests

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The nominally Democratic-controlled Senate yesterday failed to reconfirm Lauren McFerran as Chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Two Democrats-turned-Independents, Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona), joined 48 of the 49 Republican Senators in voting no. Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas did not vote, and Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine joined the 47 Democrats in voting yes.

NLRB members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Because of the schedule of overlapping terms, a new President rarely has the opportunity to immediately control a majority of the board. (Biden was unable to secure a Democratic majority on the NLRB until August 2021.) Leaving McFerran’s seat vacant, however, will allow President-elect Trump to do just that. With advisors like multi-billionaire Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself Trump’s “first buddy” and whose company SpaceX has launched a lawsuit claiming that the NLRB is unconstitutional, it is all but certain that Trump will nominate board members who will side with corporations and bosses over workers.

Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson, who spoke at UE’s 2021 convention, posted on social media that “Manchin and Sinema are responsible for killing voting rights, worker rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, childcare, vision and dental for seniors, and an economy built for the people. This is one more FU to the working class on their way out the door.”

Nelson, whose call for a general strike is widely seen as having contributed to ending the government shutdown in 2018-19, during Trump’s first term, further warned that “they better watch what they do in implementing their plans to make [the NLRB] worse. These laws are set up to mostly protect corporations and getting rid of the last pathetic bits of worker rights under the law will simply lead to more disruption and CHAOS.”