Carey, who before Trump appointed her general counsel was a partner at the union-busting law firm Morgan Lewis, didn’t put it exactly that way. In her prepared testimony Thursday before the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions subcommittee of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Carey took care to explain that the NLRB’s enormous case backlog rose to “unprecedented levels” under President Joe Biden. But that’s because congressional Republicans have been starving the NLRB of funds for 15 years, even as filings with the NLRB rise rapidly as American workers awaken to the fact that they possess labor rights.
Under Trump, NLRB staffing has fallen to 1,151. As I noted earlier this week, there are graduating high school classes bigger than that. (“My high school graduating class was bigger than that!” Arnie Arnesen told me when I appeared Wednesday on her podcast.) In her prepared statement, Carey said:
Trump was president for four of the 10 years when NLRB funding was declining. And while it’s lovely to hear that the NLRB has a green light to hire 100 new employees, the agency has lost nearly that many (82) since Trump entered office, and it’s pledged to keep staffing levels static in fiscal year 2027. Should Congress further reduce NLRB funding to $200 million, Carey said, the NLRB will lose somewhere between 300 and 460 employees. That would shrink the NLRB’s staffing to somewhere between 851 and 691. The latter figure is smaller than the size of this year’s graduating class at McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Carey didn’t mention that Trump deliberately denied the NLRB a quorum for his first 11 months in office by firing the Democratic chair, in violation of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act and that same year’s Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor (which the Supreme Court has signaled its intention to overturn for every independent agency except the Federal Reserve). Trump then waited until December 2025 to fill two vacancies and restore a quorum. While much of the NLRB’s work is conducted out of regional offices, putting the Washington-based NLRB on ice for a year didn’t exactly improve the agency’s efficiency.
When pressed by Rep. Summer Lee, Democrat of Pennsylvania, about whether the NLRB “must remain an independent agency” (i.e., not one subject to White House control), Murphy said: “As an operational matter, yes.” Lee further noted that an executive order on independent agencies that Trump issued last year required each of them to establish an office of White House liaison. Does NLRB have one? “Not that I’m aware of,” Murphy answered. Will he oppose establishing a White House liaison at the NLRB? If the president presses the matter, Murphy said, “I’m not sure what position I would be in to oppose that, other than to resign.”
Translation: This is Trump’s mess.
Republicans like to pretend this pro-labor language doesn’t exist, and to say instead that the NLRB should neither promote nor oppose collective bargaining (though of course they like it fine when it opposes). But Murphy gave the right answer to Scott’s question. “Absolutely,” he said of the NLRB’s mission to encourage collective bargaining. “It’s statutorily required.”
Militant servility to Trump and MAGA has reached such epidemic levels among Trump administration officials that Democrats are perhaps overly grateful to find any who talk like a normal human being. We haven’t seen Trump’s NLRB overturn any Biden precedents yet; Murphy affirmed at the hearing that, following NLRB tradition, he won’t do so with fewer than three votes. That can’t happen until Republican nominee James Macy is confirmed, bringing the board’s composition up to three Republicans and one Democrat.
But Macy’s Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week. Friends of labor will likely find their affection for Carey and Murphy dwindle rapidly after that.
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