Insight from the New NLRB General Counsel

Topics: Legal Information, Union-Management Relations

Last week, I attended the American Bar Association’s Mid-Winter Meeting for the Committee on Development Under the Law of the NLRA in Clearwater, Florida.

William Cowen, the new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel, was one of the featured speakers. Of course, he could not say too much, but GC Cowen did speak for over an hour. He was more candid than most government officials, which was appreciated by the attendees, who represent both the union and management side, as well as a number of NLRB officials and employees.

Here are some of the things he reported on that I thought many blog readers might be interested in, with a bit of my personal commentary:

1. GC Cowen has only been there a few weeks, so he is still figuring things out day-to-day.
2. GC Cowen’s view is that the NLRB is an executive agency and therefore he plans to follow the agenda set by the Executive Branch and the President of the United States. This means that things should get a lot more friendly for employers facing NLRB issues in the next four years.
3. Approximately 30 of approximately 1300 NLRB employees took the government's recent deferred resignation program. GC Cowen does not feel that will have a major impact.
4. According to GC Cowen, there has been no detailed analysis of the NLRB budget yet. The Board does not expect to get any increase in funding. From GC Cowen’s perspective, flat funding would be ideal, but he has no sense of where it is going.
   • Please note that this statement was made prior to the announcement late last week that all federal agencies have to submit plans for budget cuts by March 13, so I guess we can predict now where it is going. I expect that the NLRB will have material budget cuts going forward causing even further backlogs.
5. GC Cowen is a big proponent of settlement and plans to re-empower Regional Directors to handle settlements.
6. Currently, according to GC Cowen, every Region is overworked and if the budget takes a major hit, it is only going to get worse.
7. GC Cowen is going to take steps to minimize unfair labor practice (ULP) processing delays. From my perspective, this is going to be difficult to accomplish, if the Board is not given sufficient money in their operating budget and/or if material cuts in Board employees is implemented by DOGE.
8. GC Cowen’s personal view is that NLRA preemption does not allow states to regulate areas that the NLRB regulates (for example captive audience meetings). It is unclear whether the NLRB will step in to assist the Cal Chamber and California Restaurant Association lawsuit challenging the California Captive Audience Meeting ban set forth in SB 399. GC Cowen certainly did not go that far.

The General Counsel of the NLRB is vested with significant power as the chief prosecutor of the agency. With the NLRB currently lacking a quorum, there are additional delegations of authority to the General Counsel related to operations, issuing of 10(j) injunctions and other functions. Over the next few months, we will learn a lot more about how GC Cowen will operate and how it will influence the landscape for United States labor law in the next four years and beyond.