The US Senate confirmed two National Labor Relations Board members on August 7, 2026, reshaping the balance of power at the influential labour regulator.
David Prouty, first appointed to the NLRB by President Biden in 2021, secured a second term following his Senate confirmation, extending his tenure on the Board.
James Macy was also confirmed to fill one of two vacant Board seats, completing a significant shift in the NLRB’s ideological composition.
With Macy’s appointment, Republican appointees now hold a majority on the NLRB for the first time in several years, fundamentally changing the Board’s direction.
The new majority is widely expected to revisit, reverse, or modify a number of union-friendly decisions handed down by prior Democratic-majority Boards.
Until now, Republican appointees James Murphy and Scott Mayer had followed the Board’s long-standing practice of refraining from overturning precedent without at least three affirmative votes.
One of the most closely watched cases expected to come under review is Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, a 2023 ruling that created a more union-friendly procedure for union recognition without any election.
The Board is also expected to reassess its standards for when employers can prohibit union insignia in the workplace, and when workers constitute employees rather than contractors under the National Labor Relations Act.
A substantial case backlog remains a pressing operational challenge for the NLRB, regardless of how the new majority chooses to proceed on matters of precedent.
NLRB General Counsel Crystal Carey, in the first memo she issued in January 2026 as the Board’s new General Counsel, emphasised reducing the backlog of cases in front of the Board as a top priority.
The backlog issue means that even with a newly formed Republican majority eager to reshape labour law, significant decisions could still take considerable time to materialise.
Employers and labour unions alike will be watching closely as the reconstituted Board determines which prior rulings to challenge and at what pace it intends to move.