Trump Judge Strikes Blow Against NLRB in Troubling Sign of What’s Next
A Trump-appointed judge upended labor law Tuesday in granting an injunction in favor of a company arguing that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional.
Judge Mark Pittman in Texas issued the injunction for Findhelp, a tech company headquartered in Austin accused of unfair labor practices. The NLRB is a federal government agency that enforces labor law practices as well as collective bargaining.
The preliminary injunction cites the recent Supreme Court decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which weakened federal regulatory agencies. Findhelp argued that the NLRB’s judge system, which hears cases, violates the separation of powers, and Pittman agreed in granting the injunction. This does not bode well for the NLRB, and signals a long legal fight between big business and unions, divided along ideological lines between conservatives and liberals. The case could go all the way to the Supreme Court, where it would meet a pro-business majority handpicked by Donald Trump himself.
Conservatives and their corporate allies have been attacking the NLRB for quite some time, with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s all mounting legal cases against the agency in an attempt to destroy it. Trump’s time as president was four years of pro-business practices, appointing corporate-aligned attorneys to the Department of Labor and weakening laws that would have expanded worker pay and strengthened unions.