The White House intends to fill the final vacancy at the National Labor Relations Board with a member of the conservative Federalist Society, which would give Republicans control of the labor regulator for the first time in a decade.
The administration announced on Tuesday night that it would nominate William Emanuel, a management-side labor attorney at Littler Mendelson, to the agency's five-member panel. If confirmed, Emanuel and Trump's other nominee, former House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Counsel Marvin Kaplan, would tilt the board's majority to the GOP for the first time since 2007.
Democrats hold a 2-1 majority at the agency's top ruling body, which oversees union elections and workplace disputes, although Republican board member Philip Miscimarra serves as the acting board chairman. Democrats have controlled the board since 2013 and have issued decisions that are seen as favorable to labor unions. Obama's appointees voted to hold companies liable for labor violations committed by franchisees or sub-contractors, declared that graduate students are workers rather than students, and allowed unions to organize "micro-units" capable of dividing workplaces, among other rulings that have overturned years of precedent.
Republican lawmakers praised the president for the appointment. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) called Emanuel and Kaplan "well-qualified nominees with deep understanding" of America's labor environment.
"After years of an activist agenda that put the interests of union leaders over hardworking men and women, it's long past time to move the NLRB in a new direction," Foxx and Walberg said in a joint statement. "We are confident [Kaplan and Emanuel] have what it takes to return the board to its role as the neutral arbiter Congress intended."
The nomination also pleased industry groups that have clashed with the NLRB. Cicely Simpson, an executive vice president at the National Restaurant Association, said that the GOP nominees could reverse years of regulatory "overreach" by the Democratic board, pointing to micro-unions and election rules adopted by the agency in recent years as examples of "harmful decisions" for employers.
"Given the Board's broad overreach during the previous administration…we welcome the balance and fairness that Mr. Emanuel will bring to the board," Simpson said in a release.
Republicans have not had a majority of board seats since 2007. Presidents from both parties have had trouble filling vacancies at the agency, leading to legal battles that eventually reached the Supreme Court. The High Court struck down the Bush administration's attempt to run the board with only two board members and subsequently ruled that President Obama violated the Constitution by shoving through recess appointments while the Senate was not in recess. The board was without a quorum capable of issuing rulings from 2008 to 2013.
If confirmed, Emanuel will serve a 5-year term.