The Practical NLRB Advisor: Winter 2018

Ogletree Deakins’ Traditional Labor Relations Practice Group is pleased to announce the publication of the winter 2018 issue of the Practical NLRB Advisor. This issue examines how the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is moving forward after a slow start during the Trump administration’s first year in office—in which it took nearly nine months to realize a short-lived Republican majority.

The flurry of activity in the fourth quarter of 2017 included the following:

• In September, with the confirmation of William Emanuel, the five-member Board had its first Republican majority in nearly a decade.
• In November, a new general counsel took office—the first Republican to hold that post in more than seven years. The NLRB was finally poised to alter its decisional trajectory.
• In December, the Board—propelled, no doubt, by the end of former NLRB chairman Philip Miscimarra’s term of office—issued a number of consequential decisions immediately prior to Miscimarra’s departure. Those cases reversed controversial Obama-era decisions that, in many instances, had jettisoned long-standing Board precedent.
• Also in December, the NLRB’s new general counsel, Peter B. Robb, issued his first operations memorandum—a further harbinger of change.
• Finally, the White House has recently announced the nomination of John F. Ring to fill the all-important fifth Board seat. His confirmation will restore a Republican majority. When that will happen, however, is another matter.

 

These events illustrate how significant the filling of a single open Board seat can be. This issue of the Practical NLRB Advisor reviews the recent past by examining the activity of the Board during the three-month Republican majority that ended with Miscimarra’s term. This issue of the Advisor also takes a closer look at promising developments at the Board.