Trump Nominates John Ring to Fill NLRB Vacancy

Author: David B. Weisenfeld, XpertHR Legal Editor

January 19, 2018

President Trump has nominated John Ring, a management-side employment attorney with Morgan Lewis, to fill the vacancy on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If confirmed, Ring would replace Philip Miscimarra, who consistently voted with employers during his term. He also would join fellow Trump nominees William Emanuel and Marvin Kaplan, both of whom joined the NLRB in 2017.

Ring and Miscimarra are former law partners, and Ring will solidify a 3-2 Republican majority on the NLRB. In a blog post he co-authored in 2015, Ring had called the Obama-era NLRB "activist."

The NLRB has been evenly divided since Miscimarra's term expired on December 16, 2017. In Miscimarra's final days on the NLRB, the Board issued a flurry of decisions that overruled some of its Obama-era rulings. Most notably, the NLRB overturned its Browning-Ferris ruling and reinstated its prior, narrower joint employer test in its Hy-Brand decision.

It also returned to pre-Obama standards on some other labor relations issues, including with workplace civility rules. The previous Democratic-majority NLRB had found many workplace civility rules to infringe on employees' rights to "mutual aid and protection." But under the new Boeing standard, the Board will weigh the extent of any potential impact on workers' rights against any legitimate employer reasons for needing the rule.

If the Senate confirms Ring, it is likely that more Obama-era NLRB rulings could be in jeopardy.