Since January 20, 2025, President Trump has fired leaders from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Federal Labor Relations Board (FLRB), Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in addition to many nonlabor and employment agencies.
Why does this matter?
"Independent" federal agencies were created to answer the perceived need for a more professionalized government. Intended to have flexible, nonpartisan experts, these agencies were designed to be expert policymakers that would act precisely and decisively. To give them the space to do that, Congress protected them from removal by the president.
Those protections have now taken center stage in court. A federal district court has reversed the recent firing of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox. The court held that Wilcox was statutorily protected from removal, and that these protections were enforceable. But the administration takes a different view. On appeal, it has argued that the U.S. Constitution gives the president the sole responsibility to run the Executive Branch. And that means he has to be able to fire the heads of executive agencies, even "independent" ones.
The same dispute is playing out across multiple cases. It will soon be addressed by courts of appeals, and maybe even the Supreme Court. For employers, those decisions could have big effects. They could determine the direction of federal labor and employment policy for the next four years—and even beyond.
What...
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