Trump taps NLRB member, career staffer Murphy as agency's chair
By Daniel Wiessner
March 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has named National Labor Relations Board Member James Murphy as its chair, the board said on Friday, the culmination of a career with the agency spanning more than 50 years.
Murphy, who held various roles at the board, including counsel to NLRB members from 1974 to 2021, was confirmed to a seat in December along with ex-Boeing labor counsel Scott Mayer, restoring a quorum on the five-member board.
While Democratic U.S. senators generally questioned the ability of Trump's appointees to act independently, Murphy's nomination moved through the Senate with little vocal opposition. His term ends in December 2027.
Murphy in a statement said he looked forward to working with Mayer, NLRB Member David Prouty, and board staff "to protect and advance the rights of American workers."
The board lost its quorum and was effectively paralyzed last year when Trump, a Republican, fired Democratic NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox. A U.S. appeals court upheld the unprecedented move in December, calling the independence of the board and many other federal agencies from White House control into question.
Trump's appointees are expected to roll back policies favored by unions that have helped fuel a spike in union organizing in recent years.
Murphy and Mayer have already revived a rule adopted by the NLRB during Trump's first term that makes it more difficult to hold companies liable as the "joint employers" of contract and franchise workers, and relinquished jurisdiction over a case involving Elon Musk's SpaceX to a different federal labor agency.
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