Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

On Monday, the National Labor Relations Board swore in three new Board Members.  The NLRB now has a full Board with five Members for the first time since August 2010.  The new members -- Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn, and Richard Griffin -- were named by President Obama on January 4, 2012, as recess appointments.

Their membership on the Board will likely be a continuing source of political friction and legal controversy since the Senate was not formally in recess at the time the President announced their appointments.  The U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee, led by Republican Rep. John Kline (Minn.), is investigating the appointments and has asked the NLRB and the White House to provide information about the qualifications of the new Members and the President’s legal authority to make the appointments.