“Unlike the FTC commissioners in 1935, NLRB Board Members today ‘wield substantial executive power.’”
SpaceX and two other employers were entitled to preliminary injunctions halting unfair labor practice proceedings against them pending the employers’ constitutional challenges to the structure of the NLRB, the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Finding that both the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit have declined to extend Humphrey’s Executor to agencies that are not a “mirror image” of the Federal Trade Commission, the appeals court concluded that the employers are likely to succeed on the merits of their challenge to the Board members’ removal protections. In addition, “forcing the Employers to appear before an unconstitutionally structured agency inflicts irreparable harm,” and the public interest does not suffer where “an unlawful agency structure is prevented from subjecting ‘countless individuals and companies’ to unconstitutional proceedings,” said the court. Judge Wiener dissented in part (Space Exploration Technologies Corp. v. NLRB, Nos. 24-50627, 24-40533, and 24-10855 (5th Cir. Aug. 19, 2025)).
SpaceX. SpaceX is a private aerospace company dedicated to a stated mission of “making life multiplanetary.” It employs thousands of workers nationwide in rocket development and testing, rocket manufacturing, and spaceflight operations.
ULP charges. In December 2022, a former SpaceX employee filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge with the NLRB. After investigating, the...
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