The National Labor Relations Board took a significant step toward a potential new era of labor law earlier this week. On Monday, August 17, 2026, James R. Macy was sworn in as a Member of the Board. President Donald Trump nominated Macy in April for a term extending through August 27, 2030. Macy, who is from Wisconsin, brings an unusual combination of experience to the Board: more than four decades of management-side labor and employment practice, followed by senior positions at the United States Department of Labor, including Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs and Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division.
Macy's arrival is significant not merely because of his individual background, but because it gives the Board a functioning three-member Republican majority for the first time since the first Trump administration. Macy joins Trump appointees Chairman James R. Murphy and Member Scott Mayer, with Democratic Member David Prouty providing the fourth vote. One Board position remains vacant.
The Republican majority now has the three-vote majority necessary to reconsider—and potentially reverse—a substantial number of the major precedents adopted during the Biden Board.
For employers and management-side labor counsel, the question is therefore no longer whether the Board's recent precedents will be revisited. The more important questions are how quickly and how far the Board will go, and which precedents it will scrutinize.
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