When Donald Trump took office in 2017, the members of the NLRB (“Board”) were predominantly appointees of President Obama. During the Obama presidency, the Board issued decisions that were mostly favorable to the interests of organized labor and its employee-members. Those decisions reversed years of Board precedent that had been relied upon by employers as they formulated company policies and made decisions about their relationships with employees and the unions representing them. The changes in the law made during this period have been described as “radical.” These new decisions changed what employers were allowed to put in their employee handbooks, took away employers’ rights to restrict employees’ use of their email systems, and forced employers into joint employer relationships with the independent contractors performing work for them. The union movement was pleased.

In 2017, President Trump named Peter B. Robb as the new General Counsel to the Board, replacing the former Obama appointee and beginning the Trump transformation of the Board. The General Counsel has significant responsibilities at the Board, including determining which cases will be prosecuted by the agency, and what theories of law will be advanced. In December 2017, Robb issued a memo to Board offices around the nation, instructing the offices to send certain cases to Washington, D.C. for advice on how they should be handled.