Supreme Court Finds President’s NLRB “Recess” Appointments Unconstitutional
On June 26, 2014, in NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously decided that President Obama’s purported “recess” appointments of National Labor Relations Board members on January 4, 2012 violated the Constitution because the Senate was not on a break of “sufficient length” when the President appointed them, and thus the President could not dispense with Senate consent of the appointments. The decision calls into question hundreds of NLRB rulings between January 4, 2012 and August 7, 2013, when a new Board was finally sworn in with Senate approval of the President’s appointments. Those rulings include numerous pro-union decisions dealing with dues checkoff clauses, confidentiality policies and practices, employee social media activities, conduct during bargaining unit elections and workplace investigations. More globally, the decision ends an arduous debate as to the meaning of the words “[v]acancies that may happen during the Recess” in the Constitution’s Recess Appointments Clause.