Senate Confirms Trump Labor Board Nominees

Committee Aims For Reversal of Anti-Worker Biden Board Decisions

The rabidly pro-union boss Biden era at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) came to a screeching halt on December 18.

On that day, a majority of U.S. senators heeded National Right to Work Committee members’ pleas by confirming as NLRB general counsel Crystal Carey, a qualified labor attorney whom Mr. Trump had nominated back on March 25.

The Senate simultaneously confirmed attorneys Scott Mayer and James Murphy, whom the President had nominated for open seats on the five-member Board back in July.

Big Labor-Appeasing GOP Senator Held up Nominees

The process to get these nominees confirmed was far from easy despite the fact that Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans control the Senate.

Trump coattails undoubtedly helped forge the current GOP Senate majority. But the razor-thin, 12-11 Republican margin on the Senate Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee makes it possible for any Republican to block Trump nominees, with unanimous Democrat opposition virtually a given.

This left the door open for pro-forced unionism Republican Josh Hawley (RMo.) to stall Trump nominees for general counsel and the Board itself for month after month, citing bad-faith, pretextual arguments supplied by union bosses.

“Sen. Hawley was especially rude and aggressive toward Ms. Carey and Mr. Mayer for their perceived slights to Big Labor’s agenda. For most of 2025, he put himself squarely in opposition to President Trump’s plan for filling the vacancies at the NLRB,” observed National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad.

“An unstated reason for his roadblocks was to promote the senator’s so-called ‘Faster Labor Contracts Act’ [S.844], which would compel individual workers to labor under union boss-favored contract terms that are imposed upon them by federal bureaucrats.

“After a series of Committee mailings mobilized pro-Right to Work Missourians to contact him in protest of his obstruction, Mr. Hawley finally relented in November.”

That set the stage for HELP Committee votes approving the three nominations in early December.

They could then be added to the group of end-of-year en bloc executive nominations voted on and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 18 by a 53-43 margin.

Some Biden NLRB Abuses Can Now Be Curtailed, But More Needs to Be Done

With Trump appointees now holding a 2-1 majority on the NLRB, with two other seats vacant, many workers who have long been stuck in unions that are clearly opposed by a majority at their place of business may finally get a chance to vote them out.

For example, last February, a team of Starbucks employees in Niskayuna, N.Y. petitioned the NLRB for a vote to strip the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU/SEIU) union of its monopoly control over their terms and conditions of employment. Now a vote may actually happen.

And with Ms. Carey finally confirmed, independent-minded workers’ unfair labor practice (ULP) charges against union bosses will have a much better chance of getting a fair hearing.

However, even if the backlog of basic work left undone by the Biden NLRB finally starts getting done in early 2026, the process to overturn the radical Big Labor policies of the Biden Administration may not begin until later this year.

Overturning Bad NLRB Decisions May Require Three-Member Majority

“There is a long-standing precedent that overturning previous rules and decisions of the NLRB must have at least three members of the five-member board voting in favor of the change,” Mr. Mourad explained.

“Consequently, it’s possible that until three NLRB members who are willing to stand up for the individual worker’s rights are confirmed, extremist decisions like Cemex, which allows the NLRB to issue bargaining orders even if a majority of workers oppose unionization, will continue to stand.

“Workers as of now continue to suffer under Biden-era precedents that only a union boss could love, leaving long-suffering workers in the lurch even as the second Trump Administration approaches its midpoint.

“National Right to Work will continue to lobby both for needed rulings by the current Board and for the nomination and confirmation of at least one additional NLRB member who is properly supportive of employees’ individual freedom not to join a union, and of allowing employees to exercise their right to vote out unwanted unions.”

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