Courts reject states’ efforts to take over union law enforcement

A California court late last month struck down a law that would have allowed the Golden State to usurp the role of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency charged with enforcing labor laws. This decision follows a New York court’s ruling in late November tossing out that state’s similar law. These rulings likely spell the end for an effort by union allies in state legislatures to tilt the rules in the labor movement’s favor.

Had the state laws remained on the books, neighboring states could have had competing, contradictory labor regulations. That could have put employers that operate in several states in a bind, making them easy targets for legal complaints by unions. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose members include interstate truckers, pushed for the California law.

The NLRB oversees union elections and investigates charges of unfair labor practices. The members on its five-seat board are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The Senate confirmed two of President Trump’s nominees just before adjourning last year, though they apparently have not yet officially taken their seats. Prior to that, the NLRB was down to just one member, and therefore lacked a quorum to act on major cases. Even with three members, the NLRB will only barely have a quorum.

This situation is not unprecedented. Senate gridlock has frequently resulted in the board lacking a quorum in recent years. The New York and California laws attempted to take advantage of the NLRB’s inactivity by allowing state agencies to act in place of the federal agency when it failed to respond in a timely manner to unfair labor practice complaints.

In both cases, the courts held that the state laws cannot preempt the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law that created the NLRB. “The Court … cannot conclude the loss of quorum equates to the NLRB ceding its jurisdiction over any particular matter,” the judge ruled in the California case.

In the past, periods of NLRB inactivity were not a huge concern for most lawmakers. It just meant that a federal agency was operating even slower than usual. Some in the business community may have even preferred it, as unions were the ones mostly left at a disadvantage.

Over the past two decades, unions have spent much of their political capital fighting for changes to the NLRA and other federal workplace laws. They did this in the hopes that tilting the playing field in their favor would boost the labor movement. They have little to show for those efforts. The New York and California laws show a modified version of that strategy: lobbying friendly states to enact policies the unions cannot get passed at the federal level. The courts are now blocking this overreach.