Now that the U.S. Senate has confirmed Richard Griffin, Jr. as general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board, employers can expect the NLRB to continue its aggressive enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act.

Prior to accepting his position as the NLRB's top attorney, Griffin served briefly (as one of President Obama's recess appointments) on the Board itself, and carved out a career as a union lawyer. He was general counsel to the International Union of Operating Engineers and served as a director on the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee Board, in addition to holding several other labor-side positions throughout his career.

Griffin will replace Lafe Solomon, who had been the NLRB's acting general counsel. While the NLRB ultimately decides cases, Griffin, as general counsel, will choose what types of cases to file and which issues to raise in those cases, choices that could give the labor-friendly NLRB an avenue to overturn employer-favorable precedent. We expect that Griffin will continue, and even expand, the aggressive approach Solomon took toward social media, investigation confidentiality and other employer policies.

Griffin will also be working, unlike his predecessors over the last decade, with a fully comprised five-member NLRB. The actions of a fully comprised Board will not face the constitutional and procedural uncertainty that plagued prior Boards. We suspect the NLRB will enact policies that could be helpful to unions, including re-enacting its "quickie election" rule that was struck down earlier this year, and for Griffin to vigorously enforce such policies.