Acting National Labor Relations Board general counsel William Cowen rescinded a series of memos Friday issued by ousted general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo that laid out her view of federal labor law, setting up a new path for the agency during the Trump administration.
The lack of a quorum on the National Labor Relations Board following member Gwynne Wilcox's removal last month has cast a specter on the agency as parties challenge its power to conduct union elections and the legitimacy of its actions even if the president taps new appointees.
Federal-sector unions have positioned themselves as a check on the president's efforts to reshape Washington amid a series of moves by the Trump administration to shrink the federal workforce, restrict federal workers' collectively bargained rights and ease their removal.
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Acting National Labor Relations Board general counsel William Cowen rescinded a series of memos Friday issued by ousted general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo that laid out her view of federal labor law, setting up a new path for the agency during the Trump administration.
The lack of a quorum on the National Labor Relations Board following member Gwynne Wilcox's removal last month has cast a specter on the agency as parties challenge its power to conduct union elections and the legitimacy of its actions even if the president taps new appointees.
Federal-sector unions have positioned themselves as a check on the president's efforts to reshape Washington amid a series of moves by the Trump administration to shrink the federal workforce, restrict federal workers' collectively bargained rights and ease their removal.
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February 14, 2025
President Donald Trump has his sights set on taking down a 90-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects certain government officials from being fired, a U.S. Department of Justice letter confirms, and he plans to leverage his prior legal victories to deliver the precedent's death knell and expand presidential power.
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February 14, 2025
A Washington, D.C., federal judge said Friday he plans to rule "promptly" on a request by worker and consumer advocates to stop the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing three federal agencies' data but couldn't say when following a wide-ranging hearing on the bid.
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February 14, 2025
The publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will not be forced to return to bargaining with several unions representing its striking print production employees, after a federal judge ruled that the National Labor Relations Board had not convinced her that the publisher had bargained in bad faith.
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February 14, 2025
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has drawn attention for a proposal to overhaul federal labor law that has the backing of the Teamsters and other labor unions, but experts view the plan as a long shot to break through the logjam that has blocked other efforts to change the law.
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February 14, 2025
In the coming week, attorneys should keep an eye out for the final approval of a $4 million deal in a wage and hour class action involving transportation company CRST. Here's a look at that case and other labor and employment matters coming up in California.
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February 14, 2025
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposal to require businesses to notify the state if artificial intelligence is a factor in certain layoffs or plant closures is probably another public policy misfire in the effort to manage AI's encroachment on the workforce, attorneys say.
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February 14, 2025
A challenge to the U.S. Department of Labor's final rule updating the math for Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wages needs to be paused while the department's top brass catches up on the litigation, the DOL and the groups suing told a Texas federal court Friday.
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February 14, 2025
This week the Second Circuit is to consider whether to revive a lawsuit brought by a former senior vice president at a global investment firm claiming it discriminated against him due to his race and religion and gave him false poor performance reviews before firing him.
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February 14, 2025
The former chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority is the latest government official to sue President Donald Trump, saying in a complaint filed in D.C. federal court that she was fired illegally.
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February 13, 2025
The Trump administration moved late Thursday to slash more of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's workforce, initiating another round of layoffs shortly after lawyers for the agency's union petitioned a D.C. federal court for an emergency injunction to prevent it.
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February 13, 2025
A second group of unions representing federal workers has challenged the Trump administration's attempt to shrink the federal workforce through layoffs and a resignation incentive program, telling a D.C. federal judge that the executive branch's actions violate separation-of-powers principles because Congress largely controls federal agencies.
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February 13, 2025
The Sixth Circuit rejected a trade association's constitutional challenge to a memo by the National Labor Relations Board's former general counsel saying she believed that employers violate labor laws when they hold mandatory meetings discouraging unionization, ruling Thursday that the association lacked standing.
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February 13, 2025
A D.C. federal judge extended his temporary restraining order barring USAID from placing thousands of employees on administrative leave for another week on Thursday, saying he needed more time to rule on the plaintiff employees unions' preliminary injunction request to stop the agency's overhaul while the case proceeds.
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February 13, 2025
An Oregon state law requiring businesses to have labor peace agreements with unions in order to obtain a license is preempted by federal labor law and violates the 14th Amendment, two cannabis companies argued as they urged a federal court to block enforcement of the law.
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February 13, 2025
Amazon's nationwide unpaid time off policy does not violate federal labor law on its face, a National Labor Relations Board judge concluded, but the company illegally applied the policy by not restoring unpaid time off that was deducted when workers were striking.
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February 13, 2025
A U.S. House Republican who has vocally opposed Democratic-backed analyses for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or employee announced two bills related to the issue Thursday, proposing a new worker classification standard in one of the measures.
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February 13, 2025
The National Labor Relations Board's acting general counsel said Thursday that he had chosen a 27-year agency veteran from the Los Angeles office he used to lead to serve as his deputy.
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February 13, 2025
President Donald Trump should immediately reinstate the Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board he fired in January, House and Senate Democrats told the White House on Thursday, saying that leaving the board without a quorum "encourages bad employers to violate the law and trample on workers' rights."
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February 13, 2025
The Sixth Circuit stood by a lower court's ruling against a Black former English professor at Delta College in her promotion bias suit, ruling that she failed to provide meaningful evidence that she was passed over for a promotion because of her race and her pro-unionization sentiments.
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February 12, 2025
A Massachusetts federal judge on Wednesday lifted an order temporarily blocking President Donald Trump's federal worker "deferred resignation" offer and allowed it to proceed, ruling that unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers don't have standing to challenge the directive.
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February 12, 2025
Unions and nonprofits seeking to stop Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the U.S. Department of Labor's data have enhanced their injunction request, looking also to shield the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's and Department of Health and Human Services' data and prove they have standing to sue.
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February 12, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice has determined that for-cause removals for members of the Federal Trade Commission, National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Product Safety Commission are unconstitutional, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris informed Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a letter Wednesday.
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February 12, 2025
A California law prohibiting so-called captive audience meetings infringes on an employer's First Amendment right to freely talk with workers about religious or political issues, a nonprofit focused on state policy argued in federal court, calling for a halt to the statute's enforcement.
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February 12, 2025
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has denied a protest over an $82.2 million U.S. Navy construction order, saying the Navy's failure to comply with solicitation requirements when assessing the awardee's project labor agreement did not harm the protester.
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February 12, 2025
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management violated federal privacy laws when it gave Elon Musk's recently established Department of Government Efficiency access to its employment records, unions representing federal employees and administrative law judges said in a lawsuit filed in New York federal court.