\n<\/p>\n
O<\/span>n a cold January day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, workers at a Whole Foods Market store in the heart of the city made history. Organizers won a vote to form a union for the very first time in one of the grocery chain\u2019s 530 US stores.<\/p>\n Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, which has spent years quashing unionization efforts within its sprawling empire. This result amounted to another blow in the tech giant\u2019s armor.<\/p>\n Workers at Starbucks had shown in the preceding years how \u2013 in the face of heavy resistance from a determined multinational employer \u2013 one such victory could set the stage for hundreds more. A new wave of momentum had taken hold in the US labor movement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are excited to begin the next chapter of this journey,\u201d declared the Workers of Whole Foods Center City Philadelphia. Once they had turned the page, however, the chapter proved slow and arduous.<\/p>\n Just one week before the Whole Foods union ballot result came through, Donald Trump returned to the White House. On his watch a crucial federal agency overseeing the US labor force has been \u201ccrippled\u201d, according to insiders \u2013 and the new wave of momentum waned.<\/p>\n Excitement gave way to frustration in Philadelphia. \u201cDue to the fact that the NLRB isn\u2019t functioning \u2026 we\u2019re just waiting around,\u201d said Ed Dupree, who works at the Whole Foods Center City store.<\/p>\n The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the top US labor watchdog, is tasked with protecting workers\u2019 rights, overseeing the labor movement and ruling on disputes between employers and unions.<\/p>\n Its five-seat board, which hears disputes and oversees union elections, requires at least three members to issue a ruling. But days after regaining power, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox \u2013 an unprecedented decision \u2013 from the board, leaving it without this crucial quorum to make decisions.<\/p>\n Across the labor movement, many workers, in Philadelphia and far beyond, have been enshrouded in uncertainty ever since.<\/p>\n Rather than recognize the result of the vote, Whole Foods objected, triggering a long process of delays and legal challenges. While a regional NLRB director sided with the union, ruling against Whole Foods\u2019 objections, a spokesperson for the chain told the Guardian it \u201cstrongly\u201d disagrees with the regional director\u2019s decision, and claimed UFCW 1776, the union behind the unionization drive, \u201cillegally interfered\u201d with the vote.<\/p>\n It continued to appeal, taking the case all the way to the top of the paralyzed NLRB, where it\u2019s sat ever since \u2013 in limbo. In 2024, the board issued around 150 decisions on labor disputes. Over the past 11 months under Trump, it has issued six.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration thus far seems to have been treating the agency with this kind of combination of hostility and aggressive neglect,\u201d said Lauren McFerran, who served as chair of the NLRB under Joe Biden. \u201cThis is an administration that professes to be very pro-worker in its orientation, but we haven\u2019t had a functional agency to resolve labor disputes and to protect workers rights \u2026 in a year.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview, the NLRB\u2019s acting general counsel denied the agency has been neglected \u2013 and compared its decision to scrap certain policies amid budget constraints with a family, spending carefully. \u201cYou can\u2019t always go to Disney World,\u201d said William Cowen.<\/p>\n Four current rank-and-file workers spoke to the Guardian. Each requested anonymity, fearing retaliation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NLRB\u2019s employees just want to do our jobs and be treated with respect,\u201d said one official. \u201cBut from day one, this administration has crippled the agency, and treated us as enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n Staff can see \u201cfirsthand the damage that is being done\u201d, the staffer continued, claiming they and their colleagues had been left \u201cdemoralized and disgusted\u201d by Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n The National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935 to federally protect workers\u2019 rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining, now exists \u201con paper only\u201d, the official claimed.<\/p>\n Chart showing the decline of NLRB board-level decisions under the last three administrations, before plummeting to only six under Trump in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cSo far I think we are relieved the agency has not been shut down,\u201d added a longtime legal staff employee. \u201cMany employees have left, either through the \u2018fork in the road\u2019; retirement; or going to the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump nominated two board members in July: Scott Mayer, counsel for Boeing, and James Murphy, a career NLRB attorney. These appointments, if approved by the Senate, would restore quorum to the agency\u2019s board.<\/p>\n But a high-stakes ruling in August by an appeals court in the fifth circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, has increased concern. Weighing into a case that stems from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, the appeals court suggested the plaintiffs will likely prevail on their arguments that the NLRB is unconstitutional \u2013 and maintained court orders blocking the agency from proceeding with enforcement against the affected companies litigate their constitutional challenges against the agency.<\/p>\n The decision \u201cbasically halted labor law enforcement\u201d, claimed an NLRB field attorney. \u201cIf you are an employer and you don\u2019t want to go to an unfair labor practice trial, if you don\u2019t want a union to be certified at your workplace, you basically have the ability to keep that from happening just by pulling certain procedural levers.\u201d<\/p>\n They added: \u201cWe put so much work and effort into investigating these cases, and really finding the meritorious ones, and pursuing them vigorously, only to have this outlier rightwing decision, from a court that increasingly is willing to be the rightwing activists in the judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n Until, or unless, the decision is reversed, \u201cthere\u2019s nothing we can do\u201d, the attorney said. \u201cI personally have strong, meritorious cases that are just sitting, because they can\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Another attorney at the NLRB said it has been \u201cdifficult to not see anything happen\u201d with cases that have circulated. \u201cWhile we have been teeing up cases for when there is an eventual quorum, we cannot actively draft anything other than simple orders in cases we think are straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n While major cases gather dust, the number hitting in-trays across the NLRB reached its highest level in over a decade just before Trump\u2019s return to office.<\/p>\n Chart showing a two-fold increase in union election filings from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, under the Biden presidency.<\/p>\n The majority of such unfair labor practice (ULP) cases are settled by agreement, rather than litigation. Only the most contentious cases, including when a decision by a regional NLRB director is challenged, are filed to an administrative judge. If this ruling is appealed, it goes to the board.<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s workforce, which had already shrunk considerably, has declined by around 100 employees under Trump, according to estimates from the staff\u2019s union and the NLRB.<\/p>\n Despite employee concerns about capacity, the NLRB\u2019s 2026 budget request sought a reduction by $14m to the previous year. In the agency\u2019s budget request, they eliminated a strategic goal of the NLRB to \u201cimprove public awareness\u201d of its mission and activities.<\/p>\n I<\/span>n an interview with the Guardian, William Cowen, acting general counsel of the NLRB, and the agency\u2019s highest-ranking official, disputed claims it has been \u201ccrippled\u201d by the lack of a quorum, and cast the rollback of policies designed to strengthen workers\u2019 rights as a matter of priorities.<\/p>\n Cowen, a veteran NLRB official promoted by Trump after the firing of Jennifer Abruzzo, who served under Joe Biden, said: \u201cThe loss of the quorum did not have a serious impact on what the agency could do.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked what he would say to Whole Foods workers who are still waiting for almost a year on the status of their union, Cowen appeared to walk back his remarks. \u201cI wasn\u2019t saying it was unimportant that the board doesn\u2019t have a quorum, and it is particularly important, especially to those people who have a case that\u2019s waiting for the board\u2019s quorum to decide,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is not a good place to be in, because the board has to decide. My only point is that that\u2019s less than 5% of all the cases that come through the front door.\u201d<\/p>\n Chart showing the steady decline in number of NLRB employees since the the second admin.<\/p>\n He also characterized rescissions of several Biden-era policies \u2013 including steps to improve compensation for workers found to have had their rights violated, and curtail non-compete agreements \u2013 as necessary, given the lack of resources at the agency. Announcing the move in February, Cowen had said: \u201cThe unfortunate truth is that if we attempt to accomplish everything, we risk accomplishing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn pursuing so many things all simultaneously, we overloaded our system,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a weird historic case intake, and as well as historic staffing lows. It\u2019s so sort of high volume, low capacity. And so the combination of those two things put us into a situation where we had a serious backlog of cases, and it was taking significantly longer than is typical to process cases.\u201d<\/p>\n He acknowledged the NLRB could use more staff, but likened the decisions he has made since taking charge of the agency to that of a family. \u201cThere is a reality \u2026 like any homeowner knows, or family knows \u2026 that you have a certain amount of money, and you can therefore do a certain amount of things, and you can\u2019t always go to Disney World. You know with the resources you have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot that any of this is Disney World,\u201d added Cowen. \u201cIt\u2019s our challenge, as the managers of this agency, to be able to maintain operations with the resources we have.\u201d<\/p>\n As far as Cowen\u2019s concerned, the fifth circuit intervention \u2013 and the potential impact \u2013 is \u201cfar more challenging\u201d than the lack of quorum. \u201cWe can\u2019t have hearings in order to set cases up for the board to hear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While Cowen argued the paralysis of the NLRB\u2019s top court has had no \u201cserious impact\u201d on its ability to function, his direct predecessor is of a different view.<\/p>\n Without quorum at the board, Abruzzo warned Congress in June, \u201cthe issue is that there\u2019s too many employers out there abusing the processes, and then pushing it to the board by appealing when a union wins an election\u201d.<\/p>\n The appeal \u201cthen gets stuck\u201d, she noted, \u201cbecause there\u2019s no quorum\u201d.<\/p>\n Even when quorum is restored with Trump appointees, Ellen Dichner, former chief counsel to the NLRB chair, warned the agency is likely to rescind decisions issued under Biden , such as a ban on captive audience meetings held by employers to deter unionization.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very, very hostile climate for workers,\u201d said Dichner. \u201cWhat I think labor is seeing, and will continue to see, is a fundamental attack on workers\u2019 rights, and the rights of workers to organize, and the ability of workers to achieve collective bargaining agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n Some states have tried to fill in the void as the NLRB enforcement dwindles under Trump. New York and California passed laws this year \u2013 challenged by the NLRB \u2013 to grant state labor agencies authority to oversee private sector union elections and ULP charges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current president is attempting to take a wrecking ball to public and private sector employees\u2019 fundamental right to join a union and collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits and safe working conditions,\u201d said California assemblymember Tina McKinnor. \u201cCalifornia will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction.\u201d<\/p>\n As Trump officials continue to bulldoze established norms, the supreme court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the NLRB; the firing of Wilcox; and a case involving Trump\u2019s firing of former Federal Trade Commission commissioner Rebecca Slaughter that will determine the independence of federal agencies like the NLRB.<\/p>\n \u201cThe potential loss of independence at the agency is a huge pivot point for its operations,\u201d said McFerran, the former NLRB chair, who expects the supreme court to \u201cscale back or eviscerate\u201d the NLRB\u2019s independence. \u201cIf the agency does start operating in a fundamentally more politicized way, I think people will have to find other ways to get their labor disputes resolved, because they\u2019ll lose trust in the board altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n With the future of the US labor movement in the balance, workers like those in Philadelphia are waiting.<\/p>\n \u201cWhole Foods has more than enough money and profit to be able to share that wealth with the workers,\u201d said Dupree. \u201cA union is the main way for us to get more of the profit of our labor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a cold January day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, workers at a Whole Foods Market store in the heart of the city made history. Organizers won a vote to form a union for the very first time in one of the grocery chain\u2019s 530 US stores. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, which has spent years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[186,6829,864,5731,1032,81,10719,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-37408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-hostile","10":"tag-labor","11":"tag-movement","12":"tag-struggles","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-unions","15":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}