We are frustrated by the lack of action by the Senate — the Democratic majority — since Biden took office to move these critically important nominations that impact working people,” Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers union, told NBC News on Thursday. “We want Wilcox to move and to move before the recess.”
Wilcox’s term expires in August and the NLRB is already down one member, after its chairman, Trump-nominated John F. Ring, departed in December at the conclusion of his term. And the Senate has just four working days left in Washington before a lengthy August break.
If the board dwindles to three out of five members, union leaders said, it would be effectively hamstrung from implementing worker-forward policies.
“More or less, it means whatever precedent is in place, whatever rulings are in place, everything gets kind of frozen,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. “It’s in the interest of workers, and certainly in the interest of the unions that workers have, to have a functioning board with good, strong, pro-worker advocates. The NLRB is supposed to make it easier for workers to organize, not harder.”