Labor Board Set to Overturn Pro-Worker Decisions

On Friday, August 7, the Senate confirmed James Macy as the third Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board. With a 3-1 majority, the Republican members of the board are expected to begin overturning pro-worker decisions made by the NLRB's Democratic majority during the Biden administration.

Pro-worker decisions on the chopping block include Cemex, which allows the NLRB to issue a bargaining order if an employer refuses to recognize a union with majority support and commits an unfair labor practice, and Amazon, which outlaws captive audience meetings.

Employers are also looking to the Republican majority to overturn decisions that protect the rights of established unions. Bloomberg Law reports that, “For already-unionized workplaces, employers are hoping the board prioritizes Valley Hospital Medical Center II,” a decision which requires employers “to honor dues checkoff agreements even after a collective bargaining agreement expires.”

Perhaps most concerning to UE members is the threat to overturn Columbia, a 2016 decision which holds that graduate workers are employees under the National Labor Relations Act. (Universities have argued that graduate workers are merely students, and therefore not entitled to the protections of the Act.) Tens of thousands of graduate workers at private universities who joined UE in recent years, all of whom will be negotiating second contracts in the next two years, will potentially be facing hostile employers without having recourse to the NLRB to enforce their rights. (Graduate workers at public universities are governed by state labor boards, not the NLRB.)

The NLRB consists of five members, all of whom are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. By tradition, three members come from the President’s party and two from the opposition party; also by tradition, the Board will not overrule precedent without a three-member majority. Although Trump broke tradition (and, until the right-wing Supreme Court changed it, the law) by firing Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox in January 2025, the two Republican members of the Board have so far refrained from overturning precedents by a 2-1 vote. (The Board’s sole Democratic member, David Prouty, was also confirmed to another term last weekend; Wilcox’s seat remains empty.)

However, they have been making a list of precedents they want to see overturned. As progressive journalist Matt Bruenig notes in a recent Substack post, “For the seven months since the Board regained its quorum on January 7, 2026, Murphy and Mayer have been attaching footnotes to decisions that name a precedent they would revisit once a third vote existed.” Bruenig has identified 28 decisions covering topics including union elections and representation, remedies against employer wrongdoing, work rules and employee speech, bargaining obligations, and who counts as an employer or employee.

Due to the huge backlog of cases at the NLRB, it is unclear how quickly they will begin overturning precedent, but some cases already are in the pipeline. Now that the NLRB has a full Republican majority, General Counsel Crystal Carey may soon issue a list of cases she will prioritize overturning.