President Obama Consults with Trumka on New NLRB Nominees

Politico and other media outlets are reporting that President Obama’s administration consulted with AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka to come up with his two replacement nominees for the NLRB. This came about as part of a Senate deal to avoid the so-called “nuclear option” of changing the body’s filibuster rules in exchange for the President withdrawing the re-nomination of two current members who were originally installed through controversial recess appointments. 

The President’s new nominations will be Nancy Schiffer, former associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO, and Kent Hirozawa, who has served as Chief Counsel to NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce since 2010. Previously, he had served as a field attorney in Region 2 of the Board in the mid-1980s after clerking in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to returning to the Board, he worked at a pro-union law firm in New York.

Insight into Schiffer’s positions on the Board’s important role in overseeing representation elections can be found in her February 8, 2007 testimony before the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions which she entitled, “ Strengthening America's Middle Class Through the Employee Free Choice Act.”