Labor Board Member Nominations on the Horizon, Chair Says

Nominations to fill three vacant seats on the National Labor Relations Board are “imminent,” according to NLRB Chair Marvin Kaplan.

“I know at least a couple people on the list and everyone is fine, but these things take time,” Kaplan said during remarks Tuesday at a labor and employment law conference at New York University.

The board has been without a quorum since January when President Donald Trump fired member Gwynne Wilcox.

Wilcox subsequently sued the administration, and the case—which tees up a potential high court review of a 90-year old precedent—is currently awaiting a decision from a D.C. appeals court panel. The US Supreme Court put a stay on her temporary reinstatement May 22 while the litigation proceeds.

Kaplan declined to state an opinion on Wilcox’s firing, but said he had “concerns” on how future board members would react to questions of the law if they were “subject to that kind of removal.”

“I do think that taking away that protection might raise the likelihood of even greater swings in precedent, which I personally think is something the board suffers from too much,” he said.

Before Kaplan took the conference stage to deliver his keynote, members of the NLRB’s regional staff handed out flyers titled “Save the NLRB” which warned of the agency’s lack of resources and an “exploding” backlog of cases.

Kaplan didn’t address the agency’s budget during his speech, but Acting General Counsel William Cowen said during a panel Monday that the staff would “do our best” with a decreased appropriations allotment.

In its fiscal 2026 budget request, the NLRB asked Congress for $285.2 million, a 4.7% reduction from current funding levels, and said it planned to shed over 100 employees through voluntary resignations and early retirement offers.

“If Congress passes a budget with decreased funding for the NLRB or the administration’s aggressive workforce reduction continues unabated, the public will experience extreme harm and will no longer be able to receive effective and efficient vindication of their rights under the NLRA,” the flyer said.