Since Donald Trump took office on January 20th, the U.S. has seen a whirlwind of executive orders and new department heads. In the field of labor law, President Trump most notably replaced the chairs of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee (EEOC), two of the most important departments for labor and employment relations in the U.S. Both chairs are notoriously pro-business Republicans and will replacing labor-friendly Democrats nominated under Obama’s administration. Furthermore, Trump named a new Secretary of Labor who is, when nicely put, hostile towards labor. Needless to say, a major shift in politics is in the making for labor relations in the U.S. with its new president, himself a product of pro-business politics.
As board chair of the NLRB, Trump replaced “pro-union” member Mark Gaston Pearce with Philip Miscimarra, the lone Republican member of the board. Pearce held the position of board chair since 2011, leading a tide of labor-friendly decisions over the last eight years of the Obama administration.
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