Labor Scorecard Alert: “NO” on NLRB Nominee Lauren McFerran

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will score the upcoming U.S. Senate vote on the confirmation of Lauren McFerran to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The score will be incorporated into CEI’s Congressional Labor and Employment Scorecard, which can be found on CEI’s labor policy website, WorkplaceChoice.org.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute opposes Lauren McFerran’s nomination to the NLRB based upon the following principles:

• Congress established the NLRB as a body of impartial arbiters to represent the public’s interest in labor disputes—not labor or management. Lauren McFerran’s background as a union lawyer calls into question her ability to act as a neutral arbiter.
• Normally, judicial confirmations average 180 to 210 days. McFerran was recently nominated to the board on November 12, 2014. Were she to be confirmed before the end of this legislative session, that would mean the Senate took only a little more than a month to vet her. Congress should not rush McFerran’s confirmation and conduct a thorough examination of any NLRB nominee.
• Rushing Lauren McFerran’s confirmation to the NLRB is unnecessary because the Board has operated with fewer than five members for 90 percent of the time over the last 10 years.
• A number of longstanding Board precedents have been overturned during the Obama administration as a result of the president nominating union-biased individuals—not neutral arbiters—to the independent NLRB.

See further commentary on the NLRB nomination, here and here.