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President Trump's Nominee For NLRB Set to Have Final Vote Before Senate This Week


Recently, President Donald Trump nominated John Ring, a labor law attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, to fill a vacant seat on the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB").  The nomination cleared the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last month and proceeded to the full Senate for further debate and a final vote.

The Senate is expected to hold a cloture vote on Ring's nomination in the next day or two, followed by up to 30 hours of debate on the nomination.  Those who are closely following Ring's nomination expect he will be confirmed along party lines (given that Republicans have majority control of the Senate).  

Assuming Ring gets confirmed, his inclusion as a Board member will give the NLRB a 3 - 2 majority control among Board members appointed by a Republican president.  The question would then turn to whether the NLRB would again try and reverse the Browning-Ferris joint employer standard that went into effect a few years ago.  I would expect there would be increased pressure on the NLRB to do so (after the Hy-Brand decision was vacated a few weeks ago).  Whether the NLRB could find a new case to vacate the joint employer standard (and avoid similar conflict of interest issues that plagued Board member Emanuel), remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

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