With Trump’s New NLRB Nomination, Republicans Eye Overturning Biden-Era Worker Protections

President Donald Trump has teed up a Republican majority for the National Labor Relations Board, which, if confirmed, would allow the board to overturn Biden-era expansions of worker protections.

This week Trump nominated James Macy, currently the Department of Labor’s director of workers’ compensation programs — the president’s third nomination to the NLRB during his second term. Trump fired Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox in January 2025. One other Democratic member, David M. Prouty, remains on the five-member board, which investigates and adjudicates unfair labor practices and conducts union elections.

If confirmed, Macy would raise the Republican majority to 3-1. The other Republican members indicated in a January opinion that they would wait for a three-member majority to overturn Biden-era precedent, as is a longstanding practice with the majority party.

One of Republicans’ top targets is a 2022 NLRB decision that requires employers to compensate workers who were victims of unfair labor practices for “direct or foreseeable” financial harms resulting from those practices. In addition to lost wages and benefits, employers must pay out-of-pocket medical expenses, credit card debt and other costs incurred by workers.

The decision resulted in a split among circuit courts, some of which rejected the make-whole remedies as unlawful under the legislation that created the NLRB.

Employers are also crossing their fingers for a reversal of a 2023 decision that forces companies found to have committed unfair labor practices to recognize and bargain with a new union, rather than seek a new election.

Macy, who is from Wisconsin, worked as an employer-side attorney in private practice for more than 40 years before transitioning to his Labor Department role. He often represented municipalities and school districts as the chair of his firm’s team on school law, leading investigations into a letter of no confidence regarding a city attorney and alleged defamation of a former Wisconsin village manager by a union.

Republican-aligned workers’ organizations applauded Macy’s nomination on Monday. Gene Hamilton, senior adviser to the Coalition to Protect American Workers, said in a statement that the Senate should move quickly to confirm Macy so the NLRB can roll back Biden-era policies.

“This nomination is another step toward an NLRB that actually works for the American people,” Hamilton said. “American workers deserve a Board that protects the secret ballot, ensures they hear from both sides, and stops rewarding union leadership’s political games at the expense of the workers funding them.”

Macy would fill the seat of former NLRB chair Marvin Kaplan, who oversaw a quiet board last year after Trump’s firing of Wilcox left the board without a quorum and ground work to a standstill. His confirmation hearing has not been scheduled.

The NLRB, strained by the agency’s shrinking staff, has been facing a long backlog of cases.

Alongside Macy, Trump nominated Prouty, the board’s sole Democrat, to a second term of five years in a typical trade-off by the majority party.

Former Democratic NLRB member Wilcox sued the Trump administration in February last year, alleging she was illegally removed. It is one of several lawsuits testing the president’s authority over principals at independent federal agencies.

In December, a federal appeals court ruled that Congress cannot restrict the president’s ability to fire NLRB members, because they wield “substantial executive power,” reversing a lower court’s decision.

The appeals court denied Wilcox’s petition for a rehearing before all its judges in January. The Supreme Court previously declined to reinstate Wilcox in a 6-3 decision.