A couple of weeks ago, President Donald Trump did something as likely to promote violence as anything he said in the buildup to January 6: he illegally fired National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) board member Gwynne Wilcox.¹

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) says the president can only remove NLRB members “upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”² Harvard law professor and former NLRB member Sharon Block explained:

“I have never heard anyone suggest that [Wilcox] has engaged in neglect of duty or malfeasance. And she certainly hasn’t been accorded notice and a hearing. So I fail to see how her discharge accords with the law.”³

Trump’s action was clearly illegal, and Wilcox has vowed to fight him in court.⁴ But how will this promote violence? Presidents have illegally fired people in the past, and it has never ended violently.

President FDR fired an FTC commissioner for his conservative policy positions in 1933. Like the NLRA, the FTC Act only allows presidents to remove commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”⁵ In 1935, the Supreme Court upheld this language. The Court’s opinion explained:

“We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President… The authority of Congress, in creating quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies, to require them to act in discharge of their duties independently of executive control cannot well be doubted, and that authority includes, as an appropriate incident, power to fix the period during which they shall continue in office, and to forbid their removal except for cause in the meantime. For it is quite evident that one who holds his office only during the pleasure of another cannot be depended upon to maintain an attitude of independence against the latter’s will.“⁶

In 1988, the Court affirmed its 1935 decision:

“We cannot say that the imposition of a ‘good cause’ standard for removal by itself unduly trammels on executive authority… we simply do not see how the President’s need to control the exercise of that discretion is so central to the functioning of the Executive Branch as to require as a matter of constitutional law that the counsel be terminable at will by the President.”⁷

The President is not a dictator, nor does he need to be. Still, as with FDR, Ronald Reagan did not incite violence with authoritarian attacks on the EPA. How is the NLRB different than the FTC, EPA, and all other federal agencies?

It is impossible to overstate the NLRB’s singular importance. The NLRA established the NLRB in 1935. It was a last ditch effort to remedy widespread worker discontent before the country collapsed. Melvyn Dubofsky wrote about the legislative history of the NLRA in his classic book The State and Labor in Modern America. The NLRA’s author, Dubofsky wrote, saw the act as “a necessary response to the realities of industrial life.”⁸ “Necessary” is the key word here. The Great Depression had begun in 1929. Americans were scared. They were angry. It had been six years, and nothing was getting better. Militant strikes began to resemble the protests that preceded the Russian Revolution. The NLRA’s purpose was to eliminate the causes of these strikes, not incite more of them.⁹ Nobody in power wanted the NLRB, but nobody in power wanted a revolution, either.

The NLRA prevented revolution by incorporating unions into the capitalist system. An anonymous contributor to the Industrial Worker put it this way:

“The purpose of the [NLRA] was to derail militant labor activity into more polite bureaucratic avenues. For the government, workers’ self-activity was too uncontrolled. It interfered with ‘the free flow of commerce’ and risked revolutionary destabilization of the class system. If employers would just recognize unions and engage in bargaining away from the shop floor, capitalism could be made more stable and efficient. It also became obvious to those in power that labor organizations were going to exist whether they liked it or not. What is a government to do? Since they could not beat labor out of existence, the next best thing was to take control over what it meant to be a union. Unions were enshrined in law and given an ‘acceptable’ avenue to express themselves. Union structure and practice were molded to promote ‘industrial peace,’ thereby defanging labor’s more radical tendencies.”¹⁰

Indeed, Dubofsky observed:

“The number of union members had increased enormously while the incidence of strikes had declined substantially after the [NLRA] had been ruled constitutional.”¹¹

Revolution was off the table. Worker discontent was no longer a threat to the constitutional order. By the 1960s:

“New left historians, sociologists, and political scientists… described the [NLRA] as a central ingredient in a ‘corporate liberal’ scheme to salvage American capitalism from crisis by enlisting trade union leaders in a crusade to wean workers from radicalism and discipline them on the job.”¹²

FDR was no leftist mastermind. Peter Canellos explained:

“In Roosevelt’s experience, ideology was something to be feared, not embraced. Communism, fascism, Nazism (‘National Socialism’) and even the unbending capitalist principles of his conservative critics were all looming dangers to the nation’s survival.”¹³

FDR was pragmatic. He saw the writing on the wall. It was either the NLRB or a revolution to rival Russia’s. Introducing the Communist Manifesto, Vladmir Pozner characterized New Deal legislation as “a flexible response Marx had not anticipated.”¹⁴ “Better to give the workers something than risk an uprising.”¹⁵ I’m repeating myself, but it is crucial to understand that, for FDR, the NLRB was a small price to pay to save capitalism. Today’s elites have forgotten the tradeoff the NLRB represents.

Wilcox was not the only person Trump fired in his forgetfulness. He fired NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, too.¹⁶ Her departing statement is noteworthy for commenting on this tradeoff. She issued this warning to her replacement:

“If the [NLRB] does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace, as well as a fair share of the significant value they add to their employer’s operations.”¹⁷

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the NLRB can only issue decisions with a three-member quorum.¹⁸ Trump firing Wilcox left the NLRB with just two members, making it impossible to fulfill its Congressional mandate. This means the NLRB has “effectively shut down,” explained AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler.¹⁹

Trump is no pragmatist. Firing Wilcox and Abruzzo were ideological moves. Although the White House claimed:

“These were far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump administration.”²⁰

Trump is the only one upending longstanding labor law. In a story that won this month’s Sidney Award,²¹ The Guardian noted:

“Should her termination stand, Wilcox would be the first and only board member to be removed since the board’s inception in 1935.”²²

Ideology, FDR rightly feared, will tear this nation apart. Wilcox’s “radical record” included rulings on:

• Eversource Energy, a New Hampshire energy company, refusing to bargain with the IBEW after a certification election.²³
• An Illinois nursing home refusing to meet with a union before laying off its members.²⁴
• Tri-State Rigging LLC firing an employee for discussing wages with coworkers.²⁵

The NLRB decided this last case the same day Trump fired Wilcox. She told CBS News:

“I handled cases where workers were fired and retaliated against for their conduct, but I never imagined that I would be the person being fired for doing my job.”²⁶

Without a quorum, the NLRB cannot do anything to stop unethical labor practices like those listed above. “All an employer would have to do is appeal,” an AFL-CIO newsletter explained, and leave workers “in limbo indefinitely.”²⁷ This is not so different from abolishing the NLRB outright.

Before the NLRB, workers took matters into their own hands. Trump may have seized power in all three branches of government, but “structural power does not guarantee that employees will accept an ongoing economic depression without taking over factories or destroying private property.”²⁸ Real power will always remain in the hands of working people. G. William Domhoff summarized:

“[The government] is not always able to contain the volatile power conflict between owners and workers that is built into the economy. In fact, such violent confrontations have occurred from time to time in American history, such as in 1877 when a wage cut for railroad workers triggered a strike wave that spread from railroads to mines to factories, leaving over 100 people dead, mostly at the hands of 3,000 federal troops who moved from city to city via train trying to quell the disturbances. Twenty people died in Pittsburgh alone, where angry mobs retaliated by looting and burning 39 buildings, 104 locomotives, 46 passenger cards, and 1,200 freight cars owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad.”²⁹

Companies became so afraid of their employees that they replaced supervisors with machine guns. An article from the IAM’s monthly Journal reported:

“A couple of… garages made a pretense of operating their shops, with two or three scabs and an army of uniformed police, machine guns and tear gas bombs.”³⁰

An investigation committee chaired by Senator Robert LaFollette, Jr.³¹ later confirmed:

“Some companies literally kept their employees in their gun sights. When Richard Mellon, [a] billionaire from Pittsburgh, was asked why his security guards kept machine guns trained on workers at one of his mines, he airily explained ‘You cannot run the mines without them.’ LaFollette’s probe into company conduct during a steel strike in 1937 disclosed that the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company had an arsenal of eight machine guns, 369 rifles, 190 shot guns, 450 revolvers, almost 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 109 gas guns and 3,000 canisters of gas. Republic Steel was found to be the largest purchaser of tear gas in the United States—not excepting state and local police departments.”³²

“Events such as these are not soon forgotten within the corporate community,” Domhoff concluded, but 90 years hardly qualify as soon.³³ The corporate community has forgotten that the NLRB acts as an important safety valve to prevent class conflict ever rising to these levels again. It has been so effective at containing conflict that people don’t even realize it’s doing it. For 90 years, the NLRB has quietly mediated labor relations across the country. Illegally firing Wilcox has brought this to an end.

UAW President Shawn Fain has called for a general strike in 2028, but that is still three years away.³⁴ As far as I know, the IAM has shown no support for the idea. The labor movement as an institution is simply not in a position to respond to Trump’s assault on the NLRB with concerted activity. Who knows what national labor relations will look like by the time a general strike is on the table. I hope they have not deteriorated to pre-NLRB levels. A healthy grievance process is the preferable alternative for everyone, but to make it a reality, those in power will have to agree.

1. Andrea Hsu, “Trump fires EEOC and labor board officials, setting up legal fight,” NPR, January 28, 2025; Emily Peck, “Trump fires acting Labor Board chair in legally dubious move,” Axios, January 28, 2025. ↩︎
2. National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-169. ↩︎
3. Quoted in Emily Peck, “Trump fires acting Labor Board chair in legally dubious move,” Axios, January 28, 2025. ↩︎
4. Andrea Hsu, “Trump fires EEOC and labor board officials, setting up legal fight,” NPR, January 28, 2025; Michael Sainato, “Dismissed labor official sues Trump and NLRB chair over firing,” The Guardian, February 5, 2025; Jericka Duncan et al, “Former National Labor Relations Board member who was fired by Trump speaks out,” CBS News, February 7, 2025. ↩︎
5. “Humphrey’s Executor v. United States,” Oyez, accessed January 31, 2025. ↩︎
6. Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935). ↩︎
7. Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988). ↩︎
8. Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 122. ↩︎
9. Ibid, 127. ↩︎
10. x364181, “No NLRB? No Problem,” Industrial Worker, February 7, 2025. ↩︎
11. Ibid, 155. ↩︎
12. Ibid, 129. ↩︎
13. Peter Canellos, “What FDR Understood About Socialism That Today’s Democrats Don’t: He ruled at the height of government activism, but saw ideology as something to fear, not embrace,” Politico, August 16, 2019. ↩︎
14. Vladmir Pozner, “Introduction,” in The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (Bantam Classics, 1992), xx-xxi. ↩︎
15. Ibid, xxi. ↩︎
16. Andrea Hsu, “Trump fires EEOC and labor board officials, setting up legal fight,” NPR, January 28, 2025; Emily Peck, “Trump fires acting Labor Board chair in legally dubious move,” Axios, January 28, 2025. ↩︎
17. NLRB, “Statement from Departing NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo,” news release, January 28, 2025. ↩︎
18. New Process Steel v. NLRB, 560 U.S. 674 (2010). ↩︎
19. AFL-CIO, “AFL-CIO President Responds to Illegal Firing of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox,” news release, January 28, 2025. ↩︎
20. Quoted in Michael Sainato, “Dismissed labor official sues Trump and NLRB chair over firing,” The Guardian, February 5, 2025. ↩︎
21. The Sidney Hillman Foundation, “The Guardian wins February Sidney for coverage of Trump’s illegal firing of National Labor Relations Board Chair,” news release, February, 2025. ↩︎
22. Michael Sainato, “Dismissed labor official sues Trump and NLRB chair over firing,” The Guardian, February 5, 2025. ↩︎
23. Public Service Company of New Hampshire d/b/a Eversource Energy and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1837, NLRB 01-CA-333259 (2025, January 13). ↩︎
24. Salem Village Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, LLC and United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 1546, NLRB 13-CA-336228 (2025, January 17). ↩︎
25. Tri-State Rigging LLC and Zachery Wayne Edwards, NLRB 10-CA-344807 (2025, January 27). ↩︎
26. Quoted in Jericka Duncan et al, “Former National Labor Relations Board member who was fired by Trump speaks out,” CBS News, February 7, 2025. ↩︎
27. AFL-CIO, “SOLIDARITY ALERT: 📞 Reinstate NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox,” in newsletter, February 4, 2025. ↩︎
28. G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? Power, politics, & social change (McGraw Hill, 2006), 48. ↩︎
29. Ibid. ↩︎
30. Quoted in Robert Rodden, The Fighting Machinists: A Century of Struggle (Kelly Press, 1984), 82. ↩︎
31. Senator LaFollette Jr. carried the progressive torch for his father, Robert LaFollette, Sr, who won the IAM’s endorsement for president in 1924. ↩︎
32. Ibid, 95. ↩︎
33. G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? Power, politics, & social change (McGraw Hill, 2006), 48. ↩︎
34. Michael Sainato, “‘We want everybody walking out’: UAW chief outlines mass strike for May 2028,” The Guardian, January 22, 2024. ↩︎