President Trump continued to make waves just over a week into his presidency with his decision earlier this week to fire the chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Gwynne Wilcox. This unprecedented decision came alongside Trump’s firing of NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo.
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that was created to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a 1935 law which guarantees the right of “most private sector employees to organize, to engage in group efforts to improve their wages and working conditions, to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative, to engage in collective bargaining, and to refrain from any of these activities.” The Board has five members, each appointed by the president to 5-year terms with Senate approval. As a result of Wilcox’s termination, the NLRB currently only has two members. Under law, the Board needs a quorum of three members to make any decision.
