Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP Images
The Trump administration will choose a partner at the notorious anti-union law firm Morgan Lewis to be the next general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, multiple sources tell the Prospect.
Crystal Carey is a former NLRB official from 2009 to 2018; she started as an intern with the Board and moved up to senior counsel, working on the Board and general counsel sides of the office. She became a partner last year at Morgan Lewis, which has been one of the most powerful management-side law firms in the country since the 1950s. Morgan Lewis attorneys have been involved in some of the most prominent labor battles in America since then, from the 1981 air traffic controllers strike to efforts by McDonald’s to resist the Fight for $15.
One of Morgan Lewis’s biggest current clients is Amazon, which used algorithmic management and surveillance tactics to prevent unionization at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in 2021. Amazon also has an active lawsuit that seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional.
Carey, who is in her early forties, has been at Morgan Lewis since leaving the NLRB in 2018, mostly as a trial attorney. She became a partner last October. While union sources had heard that Carey’s name was “in the mix” for the critical NLRB general counsel position, she is not a high-profile person in the labor world.
It is unclear when the announcement will formally be made. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The selection would confirm that any talk of the second term of President Trump being in any way pro-labor was largely lip service or sheer fantasy. That was already fairly clear with the mass gutting of federal agencies though large-scale firings of workers, actions often at odds with federal employee protections. But hiring an attorney of a go-to union-busting law firm to administer labor law in the U.S. makes Trump’s position crystal clear.
Though some labor leaders, like Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, have hailed the confirmation of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who has in the past supported legislation that would make it easier for unions to win workplace elections, the reality is that labor secretary is not a big policymaking job, at least not compared to the NLRB general counsel. The general counsel sets priorities for NLRB cases, which govern union elections and rights in the workplace. The Labor Department has important priorities as well, but the work to end the slide in union density in the United States really begins at the NLRB.
The Teamsters did not return a request for comment on Carey’s pending appointment.
Under Biden’s GC Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB pursued an agenda that sought to level the balance of power between unions and management in America. During Abruzzo’s tenure, the NLRB reversed 12 decisions from Trump’s first term that weakened worker rights and made it harder to organize. It also banned “captive audience” meetings (where workers must listen to anti-union arguments from management), outlawed the practice of management claiming that unionized workers cannot bring grievances directly to supervisors, and determined that if a company commits unfair labor practices during a union election, then the union is automatically recognized and the employer must begin bargaining of a first contract. Another Abruzzo-led initiative, allowing workers to recover greater damages from being illegally fired for protected activities, was overturned in the courts.
When he took office in January, Trump fired Abruzzo and Board chair Gwynne Wilcox. The latter discharge was deemed illegal by a federal court, and Wilcox is now back on the job, giving the NLRB a temporary 2-to-1 Democratic Board majority. But Trump has the ability to appoint two members to the Board, putting it in Republican hands again.
With Carey as the general counsel, the Board will likely go about reinstating actions from Trump’s first term, and reversing Abruzzo’s initiatives. Given her background, Carey can be expected to be a cipher for management’s wishes.
There are certainly some people in the White House and the Republican Party more broadly who are not as rigidly opposed to organized labor, and may even support collective bargaining in certain cases. But that’s certainly not the prevailing opinion, as the installation of a Morgan Lewis lawyer as NLRB general counsel reinforces. If this appointment is any indication, the next four years look bleak for workers seeking to organize.
