President Trump’s nominee to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was aggressive grilled by Missouri Republican Josh Hawley at her July 16 confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Crystal Carey worked as an attorney at the NLRB for eight years, but left in 2018 and became a law partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, one of the biggest management-side labor law firms in the United States. The firm represents some of the nation’s most anti-union employers, including Amazon, Apple, and Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX. Trump announced March 24 that Carey is his nominee for NLRB general counsel. General counsel serves as the top prosecutor of violations of the National Labor Relations Act and oversees the NLRB field offices that administer union certification elections and investigate unfair labor practice charges.
What kind of defender of workers’ right to unionize would Carey be? Under questioning by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), she wouldn’t even agree that the NLRB is itself constitutional, saying she would defer to the courts on that. Carey’s law firm represents Amazon and SpaceX in pending federal lawsuits arguing that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Carey about an NLRB precedent decided last November, when Biden appointees on the quasi-judicial side of the NLRB ruled that so-called “captive audience” mandatory anti-union meetings are a violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
“I have been critical of that decision, and I stand by everything that I have said publicly,” Carey answered.
Hawley pounced: “You wouldn’t be able to enforce it, then?” Again and again, Carey dodged that question as Hawley pushed her for a straight answer. He then moved to the question of whether Amazon could get away with saying its drivers weren’t employees with union rights; Carey said she wouldn’t comment on it.
The NLRB has lost nearly 40% of its enforcement staff and is now taking 450 days on average to process worker complaints of labor law violations. Would Carey commit to seek a bigger budget and more staff, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) asked? Carey said she’d have to wait until she was on the job before deciding that.
Republicans have only a 12-11 majority on the committee, so if Hawley votes with Democrats against Carey, that would torpedo her nomination. On July 24, the commitee voted to recommend two other Trump nominees who were questioned the same day as Carey. No vote on Carey’s nomination was scheduled at press time.
