Carey was an NLRB official from 2009-2018, after which she joined notorious union-busting law firm, Morgan Lewis where she made partner in 2024. Morgan Lewis has been a thorn in the side of labor for decades including during the 1981 PATCO strike, currently Morgan Lewis represents Amazon in their fight against the nationwide campaign to organize their sweatshop-like facilities.

We must ask who benefits from an appointment like this. It certainly is neither the labor movement nor the working class as a whole. Trump knows full well that the misleaders of labor have relied heavily on the administrative state to organize and maintain any semblance of power against the assaults for monopoly capital; this is an attempt to pull the rug out from under them.

The only path forward is a mass rank-and-file movement aimed at fighting back against monopoly capital’s new assault. We can only defeat the bosses with a class-oriented trade union movement built from below and ready to fight. We need a militant labor movement to take the lead in building an anti-monopoly coalition to fight the bosses and organize the unorganized.

The post Trump Continues Assault on Labor, Names Union-Busting Lawyer as new NLRB General Counsel first appeared on Labor Today.

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

The post LUEL Statement on the State of the NLRB first appeared on Labor Today.

In its decision, the NLRB ruled that going forward companies are no longer able to use the captive audience meeting to force workers to listen to their anti-union diatribes used to convince workers that the bosses “have their best interests at heart”. Unfortunately, this ruling does not go far enough as it still allows so-called voluntary meetings, “so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept.”

Given the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s overruling of the 1984 Chevron Decision earlier this year this is likely to provide cover for the bosses to continue this practice with little recourse. The striking down of the Chevron Decision has limited the ability of federal agencies to interpret the laws they are tasked to enforce.

Labor United Educational League stands in solidarity with all worker-organizers who take up the mantel to challenge monopolies such as Amazon. We cannot solely rely on NLRB administrative law to protect us. Only a mass, class-oriented fight can defeat the monopolists.

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League

The post LUEL Statement on the NLRB’s Ban on Captive Audience Meetings first appeared on Labor Today.

Both Tesla and Amazon have been accused of violating federal labor laws in the past with Musk firing workers at a Buffalo, New York plant after they had informed him of their intent to unionize. Amazon has had multiple labor violations brought against it by the Teamsters who are currently organizing Amazon warehouses (including drivers) and continuing to add pressure to get the company to the bargaining table. Given that any federal labor law (and violation) is upheld by the NLRB, it is clear why the two billionaires would seek to dismantle it. This would give corporations an unfettered hand in destroying unions and workers’ rights and can be summed up in two words that Sean O’Brien used at his RNC speech: economic terrorism.

Furthermore, the appointment of Musk to the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is a clear threat to public sector employees and their ability to collectively bargain. Bezos has gone on record saying that he looks forward to Trump’s administration working to deregulate the economy saying, “we do have too many regulations in this country”. The labor movement has relied on the Democrats for decades to keep it afloat. Now with the threat of the Trump administration and their aims to overturn the NLRB, attack unions, and undermine workers’ right to collectively bargain, unions will have to regain their militancy or they will cease to exist. This represents a unique opportunity for class-oriented trade unionists to take the lead in rebuilding the labor movement in this country.

The post EDITORIAL: Musk & Bezos Attacks on the NLRB are a Sign of the Troubles to Come first appeared on Labor Today.

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.”

The post UE: Senate Hands Control of Labor Board to Big Business Interests first appeared on Labor Today.

On July 24, a Texas federal district court issued an injunction in a case brought by billionaire Elon Musk’s company Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) against the National Labor Relations Board. The injunction prohibits the NLRB from proceeding with a trial charging SpaceX with committing unfair labor practices. In a troubling decision, the court found that SpaceX was likely to win its case arguing, in essence, that the authority of NLRB Administrative Law Judges, and that of the five members of the NLRB, to whom ALJ decisions can be appealed, is unconstitutional. 

In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, employers, including at least one UE employer, have simply been ignoring NLRB rulings — making it more difficult for unions to enforce the legal rights of the workers they represent.

The case hinges on the just cause protections from removal that the National Labor Relations Act grants to ALJs and members of the NLRB. These protections ensure that ALJs can only be removed “for good cause” and that NLRB members can only be removed “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” SpaceX argued that these protections are a violation of Article II of the Constitution, which gives the President the right to remove officers of the federal government who wield substantial executive power.

In addition to the immediate chilling effect this injunction will have on NLRB proceedings, it sets up a Supreme Court case over the constitutionality of the NLRB — something that has been settled law since 1937. However, the current right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has clearly been willing to ignore long-settled precedent, as they did when they overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, after that decision had stood for almost half a century.

Musk, who in the words of Nation columnist John Nichols “hates unions, with a white-hot passion that has rendered him delusional,” is clearly banking on a second Trump presidency to bring political pressure to bear on the NLRB to abandon the aggressive stance it has taken in enforcing workers’ rights in the last few years. (Musk endorsed Trump in July.)

As Nichols writes, “If Musk gets his way, this scheme to gut the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 could destabilize a wide range of federal enforcement agencies that administer laws regulating everything from workplace safety to environmental conditions.”

While it is impossible to predict exactly what the Supreme Court will do when the SpaceX case reaches their docket, if they remove the protections that ALJs currently have, the actions of the NLRB will become even more subject to influence from the President — making the upcoming Presidential election all that more critical to protecting workers’ rights.

The post UE: Texas Court Hands Elon Musk Dangerous Ruling Against Labor Board’s Constitutionality first appeared on Labor Today.

Seyfarth Shaw has an extensive list of clients from industries all over the world including companies like ABC, Starbucks, and many more. They have a history of working with employers on union busting drives such as a case last year at a Coca-Cola plant in California and the Amazon KCVG warehouse. Back in 2018, they also wrote an article against “union corporate campaigns” where they warned employers against union tactics to “exploit a company’s perceived vulnerabilities.” It bears asking why a company that has a vicious history of anti-worker sentiment can be supported by a president that has been lauded for having such a pro-union stance.

It should come as no surprise that the individual being elected, Mr. Ditelberg, also has a history of anti-union sentiment. In November 2023, Ditelberg was quoted as saying the NLRB final rule on Joint-Employer Standard was “significant” and then iterated that “a joint-employment finding could saddle an unsuspecting employer with liability for an unfair labor practice or with brand new (and expensive) bargaining obligations.” Looking through the history of published articles by Ditelberg on the Seyfarth site, it is clear that his priority is protecting employers and voicing his disapproval any time workers are provided minor concessions. Even back in 2010 with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Ditelberg was cited as having concern for “short and long-term consequences” for union employers.

President Biden, throughout his presidency, has constantly talked about how America needs “good paying, union jobs” and yet is actively working to undermine the very institutions that help strengthen workers collective bargaining rights. He has also helped the railroad barons of America when he stopped a strike from happening by citing the Railroad Labor Act, effectively helping the bosses. We see here again that a nomination from a viciously anti-union company such as Seyfarth Shaw to the NLRB will only further help bosses, contradicting Biden’s claim that he is “the most pro-union president in American history”.

The post President Biden Nominates Partner from Notorious Union-Busting Law Firm to NLRB first appeared on Labor Today.

In 1937, the NLRB was taken to the Supreme Court (NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin) and deemed constitutional. The bosses are claiming that the NLRB arbitration hearings are civil cases. This would justify their complaint that a lack of a jury in the hearings makes the board unconstitutional. The basis of the lawsuit from SpaceX relies on precedent that is still being litigated in Jarkesy v. SEC.

All workers deserve the right to organize within their workplaces, yet this right is constantly being eroded by bosses behind SpaceX, Tesla, and Trader Joe’s. The bosses’ claim that the NLRB is “tyranny” is a joke. Objectively, the real tyranny faced by millions of working people in this country is their continued pauperization and speed-up by bosses such as Elon Musk who unabashedly announced that workers will be sleeping on the production line to make his profits.

Labor United Educational League stands resolutely behind the workers fight for a workplace free from retribution and to unionize. This attack on the NLRB, a Federal agency which is already inconsistent in its support of workers, is an attempt to render the NLRA to the same fate as the National Industrial Recovery Act as toothless with no body to enforce it. This continued attack on labor renders it more important than ever for the militant rank-and-file to build a class-oriented trade union movement.

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League

The post LUEL Statement on the SpaceX/Trader Joe’s Attack on the NLRB first appeared on Labor Today.