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The election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the White House, a long-time vocal supporter of organized labor, coupled with control of both houses of the U.S. Congress by the traditionally labor-friendly Democratic Party, is the prelude to changes on the labor law front, a number of which are potentially significant. (Note that following Democratic victories in both Georgia runoff races, the U.S. Senate is technically split 50-50. However, in case of a tie vote in the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris is constitutionally empowered to cast a tie-breaking vote. Thus, Democrats have control of the upper chamber, albeit by a very slim margin.) The two major engines of this anticipated change will be the U.S. Congress, most especially the U.S. Senate, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Part one of this two-part series regarding labor law policy and the new administration discusses these anticipated labor law changes.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
At noon, eastern standard time, on January 20, 2021, Joseph R. Biden Jr. became the 46th president of the United States, giving Democrats control of the executive branch, and, albeit by the thinnest of margins (with Vice President Kamala D. Harris presiding as president of the U.S. Senate), the legislative branch of the U.S. government for the first time since 2011. While that transition will, no doubt, impact a great many national and global issues, the focus of this article is the potential impact that this dynamic will have on U.S. labor law and policy.
Those who have been monitoring labor issues since 2008 largely know what to expect. After four years of more management-friendly labor policy, today the pendulum has started to swing in the direction of labor, just as it did in 2008. How far the pendulum swings and how fast is yet to be determined, but all signs indicate the swing could be significant. On the eve of the election, President Bid