President Biden dismissed the general council of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after refusing to resign.
Biden asked Peter Robb, nominated by Trump, for his resignation on Wednesday. He refused to resign and was fired later that day, a White House spokesman confirmed to The Hill.
Robb was sworn into office in November 2017 for a four-year term scheduled to end in November this year. The NLRB is an independent agency governed by a five-person board and a general board.
In a letter to the White House obtained under the Bloomberg Act, Robb said he would not resign and that his removal “would permanently harm” the agency’s work.
“Respectfully, I refuse to resign my four-year term confirmed by the Senate as NLRB General Counsel less than 10 months before the end of my term,” wrote Robb.
The NLRB website indicates that Robb’s “period of service”, which started on November 11, 2017, ended Wednesday.
Biden’s choice for the next NLRB general council will have to be confirmed by the Senate, and the Democratic choice will work alongside the current council, which is made up of one Democrat and three Republicans, with one seat.
A general council of the NLRB has not been asked to resign since 1950, when President Truman called for Robert Denham to resign because of an anti-union bill, Bloomberg Law reported.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, criticized Biden on Wednesday for calling for Robb’s resignation, saying his calls for unity and civil discourse “are already proving to be empty aspirations” .
“The Biden administration appears to be rewarding its friends at Big Labor on the first day through this inadequate requirement that NLRB General Counsel Robb resign immediately or be forcibly removed,” Foxx said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Biden chose Lauren McFerran to chair the NLRB. McFerran has served on the board since December 2014 and was confirmed in July for another term ending in December 2024.