How many members does the National Labor Relations Board have?
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has five Members, each of whom serves for a five-year term. Terms are staggered so that one Member's term expires each year (although delays in nominations and confirmation, as well as the use of recess appointments, can upset this schedule). Members are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. Traditionally, a majority of the board belongs to the President's political party. The President designates the Chair from one of the existing Members. The Chair serves at the pleasure of the President, and may be demoted without cause or warning at any time.
List of Chairs of the National Labor Relations Board
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the Federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 it supervises elections for labor union representation and can investigate and remedy unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of protected concerted activity. The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a General Counsel, all of whom are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed to five-year terms and the General Counsel is appointed to a four-year term. The General Counsel acts as a prosecutor and the Board acts as an appellate quasi-judicial body from decisions of administrative law judges.
National Labor Relations Board
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On December 28, 2007, just before the Board lost its quorum, the four members agreed to delegate their authority to a three-person panel per the National Labor Relations Act. Only Liebman and Schaumber remained on the Board, but the Board concluded that the two constituted a quorum of the three-person panel and thus could make decisions on behalf of the Board. Liebman and Schaumber informally agreed to decide only those cases which were in their view noncontroversial and on which they could agree, and issued almost 400 decisions between January 2008 and September 2009.
National Labor Relations Board
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Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6763 on June 29, 1934. The new order abolished the NLB. In its place, it established the National Labor Relations Board. The new NLRB had only three members: Lloyd K. Garrison, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, was its chairman; Harry A. Millis, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Edwin S. Smith, Commissioner of Labor and Industry for the state of Massachusetts, were its members.
National Labor Board
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From December 2007 until June 2010, the five-person Board had only two members, creating a legal controversy. Three members' terms expired in December 2007, leaving the NLRB with just two members—Chair Wilma B. Liebman and Member Peter Schaumber. President George W. Bush refused to make some nominations to the Board and Senate Democrats refused to confirm those which he did make.
National Labor Relations Board
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Charges are filed by parties against unions or employers with the appropriate regional office. The regional office will investigate the complaint. If a violation is believed to exist, the region will take the case before an Administrative Law Judge who will conduct a hearing. The decision of the Administrative Law Judge may be reviewed by the five member Board. Board decisions are reviewable by United States Courts of Appeals. The Board's decisions are not self-executing: it must seek court enforcement in order to force a recalcitrant party to comply with its orders. (For greater detail on this process see the entry for unfair labor practice).
National Labor Relations Board
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The board itself (as an adjudicating body distinct from the functions separated as a result of Taft-Harley) has a fixed seating which is assigned based on the names of 5 original members.
National Labor Relations Board
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The Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), was founded in 1947 as the Industrial Relations Research Association. LERA is an organization for professionals in industrial relations and human resources. Headquartered at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the organization has more than 3,000 members at the national level and in its local chapters. LERA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that draws its members from the ranks of academia, management, labor and "neutrals" (arbitrators and mediators). The organization uses the slogan "Advancing Workplace Relations."
Labor and Employment Relations Association
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The Board has more than thirty regional offices. The regional offices conduct elections, investigate unfair labor practice charges, and make the initial determination on those charges (whether to dismiss, settle, or issue complaints). The Board has jurisdiction to hold elections and prosecute violations of the Act in Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
National Labor Relations Board
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On December 20, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Fanning as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). At the time he joined the NLRB, the Board and its regional directors were handling about 16,000 cases a year. In a testament to his professionalism and bipartisanship, he was reappointed by Presidents Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter. He was widely known for being exceptionally knowledgeable about Board rulings, but was also a frequent dissenter on the Board and known for being favorable to labor unions. Fanning did not deny this bias, noting in 1977, "I'm convinced that if a company has a union in its plant, the union was pretty much invited in by the actions of the company. People don't pay union dues if they are entirely happy. Many employers are now recognizing that if you are not greedy, you can keep a union out of your plant if you really want to. All you have to do is pay the prevailing wages or a little more." His reappointment to the NLRB by President Nixon in 1972 for a fourth five-year term set a record at the time.
John H. Fanning