WASHINGTON—Republican President Donald Trump’s firing of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox presages something far worse, two top AFL-CIO officials say: A total—and unconstitutional—takeover of the entire federal government down to the lowest level.
And that’s very bad for workers, Jody Calemine, the federation’s Legislative and Advocacy Director, and Matt Ginsburg, its General Counsel, add.
In an interview with several reporters, the two said if Trump’s illegal firing of Wilcox stands, Trump could use it as an open signal to reach down to the lowest level of decision-making in any agency, and nobody could stop him.
Worse, they add, Trump campaign contributors would be able to “buy” favorable rulings from formerly independent agencies such as the NLRB, by shoveling in dollars to the president and his causes. “The board isn’t independent anymore,” said Calemine.
And total presidential control would occur, with no recourse, Ginsburg added. “We may see particular cases not get decided fairly, but in favor of what the president’s particular interests are.” He applied that not just to the NLRB but everywhere in the government.
“When a president can say what an unfair labor practice is,” and nobody can stop him, “that is something everybody should worry about.” Wilcox’s firing “was a power grab and the [Supreme] Court blessed such a power grab.”
Even “employers realize how high the stakes are to have independent agencies who make decisions that affect so many parts of our society.” That prospect extends beyond the NLRB, the duo warned.
“That’s why we’re trying to organize at the federal level, the state level, and the local level to wake people up to the threat to our democracy and our economy.”
Moves to exert total control
The two spoke against a background of Trump’s constant moves to exert total control over every aspect of federal decision-making, thus putting into practice a favorite theory of the U.S. radical right, the “unitary executive.” Think of democracies in name only, such as in Hungary, or one-person dictatorships, as analogies.
Part of Trump’s campaign involves Wilcox. Before he fired her, Wilcox was the first-ever African-American NLRB member and chair.
Her term was supposed to continue until August 2028. She was part of a five-member NLRB that decides worker-boss cases, runs union recognition elections, and judges other disputes, including over management breaking labor laws. NLRB members serve staggered terms, ensuring there is not a complete turnover when a new president occupies the White House.
But just three weeks after he took office for a second term, Trump fired Wilcox, and his stated reason was “she wasn’t pro-business enough.” Wilcox sued to get her job back, won in U.S. District Court, lost at a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C., but won before that court’s full roster of judges. She then lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has six GOP-named judges.
The one loophole at the high court, Ginsburg said, is that the justices ruled on procedures, not merits, and returned the Wilcox case back to the appellate court for a trial on merits. That panel could rule for Wilcox, but meanwhile, her seat stays vacant.
Thus, the five-person board is down to a 1-to-1 partisan split with three vacancies and lacks a quorum. And a court ruling on the merits decision could take at least a year.
“Things will appear normal, even when there is a quorum, but they won’t be,” says Calemine. Not when an NLRB official, administrative law judge, member, or anyone else knows they could be instantly fired if they cross Trump.
And workers have no other route to justice in labor-management cases involving unions, Ginsburg added. That could affect approximately 130 million civilian workers in the U.S. In the meantime, he warned, Trump would have total power—and not just over workers.
“He is the law,” Ginsburg said of the president. “The firing means he could dictate board decisions up and down the line, and there is no alternative. We could see situations where complaints” about unfair labor practices “wouldn’t even be issued” because board members—or even rank-and-file NLRB workers—would be fired for defying Trump dictates.
There is one other potential recourse, maybe, Ginsburg mused. Workers and management, stymied by “a captured agency,” could work around the NLRB. “They could engage in constructive collective bargaining even without the agency.”
Would the two sides actually do that? Neither Ginsburg nor Calemine addressed that question, and off 90 years of history, the results are at best mixed. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority—more than 95% of complaints—brought to the board’s offices are solved without going all the way up to the full NLRB, compromised or not.
On the other hand, there are employers, such as chief Starbucks stockholder Howard Schultz and Amazon multibillionaire Jeff Bezos, who hate unions and the NLRB. They’ve even gone to the lengths of suing in federal court in deep-red Texas, stuffed with Trump-named judges, to get the whole board declared unconstitutional.
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