By Lulit Shewan

The Trump Administration has nominated Crystal Carey, an attorney at Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This nomination is a direct attack on worker’s rights. Carey has spent her career defending employers and challenging the existence of the NLRB as a whole. Her confirmation would severely weaken the NLRB’s ability to safeguard workers, protect collective bargaining and fair working conditions, and uphold fair labor practices, as well as shift the balance of power even further in favor of corporations.

At Morgan Lewis, Carey oversees efforts to dismantle workers’ rights throughout the country, including the particularly alarming pursuit to declare the NLRB unconstitutional. She supports captive-audience meetings and has defended the employer practice of spreading negative claims about unionization in the workplace. Carey also advocates limiting corporate oversight and mitigating union growth, stances that are bound to be reflected in the NLRB’s enforcement priorities upon her confirmation.

Morgan Lewis is one of the largest and most powerful employer-favoring law firms in the country. It currently represents large corporations known for violating workers’ rights, including Amazon, SpaceX, Apple, and Tesla. The firm is expressly anti-union and has a storied history of opposition to organized labor. Morgan Lewis attorneys have extensive expertise fighting against unions in NLRB elections, vehemently backing large corporations in worker-led job quality lawsuits and advocating for tactics that suppress unionization.

The firm also had strong links to Trump’s anti-union NLRB during his first term. Former firm employees John Ring and Phil Miscimarra both served as NLRB chairs during Trump’s first term, and both have spoken out in favor of regressive union certification policies with the backing of their firm.

The General Counsel plays a critical role within the NLRB, overseeing the investigation and prosecution of labor violations across the country and setting its overall agenda for changes to labor policy and enforcement priorities. Given this positionality, Carey’s nomination is a clear indication of the direction that Trump’s NLRB is moving toward— an agency that operates with evident bias toward bolstering corporate power and determination.

Carey’s confirmation is an essential part of ongoing administrative efforts to decimate union and worker power. Prior to her nomination, the administration pushed for the discriminatory firing of Board chair and career labor representative Gwynne Wilcox. Just a week after her nomination, the NLRB froze two legal cases against Apple addressing the corporation’s unlawful interference with employee unionization efforts, one of which was due for a hearing this month. Carey is listed in the agency’s records as an attorney acting in Apple’s defense in both cases.

Acting Counsel William Cowen has already helped further the Trump Administration’s reshaping of labor law. He rescinded a series of memoranda issued by his predecessor, Jennifer Abruzzo, including regarding remedies, rights of college athletes, restrictive covenants, and union recognition; and also withdrew several exceptions to administrative law judges’ decisions filed under Abruzzo’s tenure that sought precedent shifts. Likewise, Carey would interpret the NLRB in a way that aligns more closely with employer interests, advancing cases and arguments that give the Board opportunities to change the law and return to more corporate-friendly standards.

As national union density struggles to see growth, the policy direction of General Counsel of the NLRB is a powerful determinant in the future of organizing efforts and working-class autonomy. CLASP unequivocally believes that the confirmation of Crystal Carey is a substantial marker of regression for the labor movement.