Trump Transfer To Fire Members of EEOC and NLRB, Breaking With Precedent

President Donald Trump has transferred to fire Democratic members of 2 independent federal commissions, an amazing break from years of legal precedent that assures to hand Republicans control over boards that manage swaths of U.S. workers, employers and labor unions.

On Monday night, he dismissed two of the three Democrats on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows, formerly the chair, the White House validated Tuesday. He likewise fired the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwynne Wilcox, a Democrat, employment an NLRB representative confirmed Tuesday.

All three said they are exploring their legal alternatives against the administration – cases that legal scholars state might reach as far as the Supreme Court.

Trump likewise removed the EEOC’s general counsel, Karla Gilbride, who manage civil actions versus companies on a variety of problems, consisting of discrimination claims from LGBTQ+ and pregnant employees. And he terminated Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s general counsel. Their departures throw into question the status of numerous actions underway at both companies, including against billionaire Elon Musk’s electrical cars and truck company, Tesla.

“These were far-left appointees with radical records of upending long-standing labor law, and they have no location as senior appointees in the Trump administration, which was provided a required by the American individuals to reverse the extreme policies they produced,” a White House official stated, speaking on the condition of anonymity under guideline set by the administration.

In statements issued Tuesday, Burrows and Samuels both called their removals “extraordinary.”

“Removing me from my position before the expiration of my Congressionally directed term is unprecedented, breaches the law, and represents a basic misconception of the nature of the EEOC as an independent company – one that is not managed by a single Cabinet secretary however runs as a multimember body whose differing views are baked into the Commission’s design,” Samuels composed.

In dismissing her, she included, the White House critiqued her views on sex discrimination, variety, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, and availability problems. She stated the criticism misconstrued “the fundamental concepts of equal job opportunity.”

Burrows composed that her removal “will weaken the efforts of this independent agency to do the important work of securing employees from discrimination, supporting employers’ compliance efforts, and expanding public awareness and understanding of federal employment laws.”

Wilcox, the NLRB member, wrote in a statement that she will pursue “all legal opportunities to challenge my removal, which breaches long-standing Supreme Court precedent.”

The removal of basic counsels is not without precedent: employment President Joe Biden fired Trump-appointed general counsels at the EEOC and NLRB upon entering workplace in 2021. Yet dismissing members of independent commissions represents a significant break from Supreme Court precedent dating to 1935, which holds that the president can not eliminate members of independent firms such as the EEOC other than in cases of disregard of responsibility, impropriety or inefficiency.

Trump’s actions leave both five-member boards without sufficient members to carry out organization. The boards now have just 2 members; Trump must fill the jobs and wait for Senate approval.

Legal experts were troubled by Trump’s move.

There are “concerns that this is the initial step towards erosion of office securities against discrimination in the office,” said Kevin Owen, an employment attorney in Maryland focusing on federal staff members.

“This may herald completion of the EEOC as we know it.”

Trump has espoused an expansive view of executive power and campaigned on taking more control over agencies that traditionally ran largely independent of the White House, including the EEOC and NLRB. His maneuvers likewise bring into question whether he will take comparable actions at other independent agencies.

“I will bring the independent regulative companies such as the [Federal Communications Commission] and the [Federal Trade Commission] back under governmental authority as the Constitution demands,” Trump wrote on his social networks platform, Truth Social, in April 2023. “These firms do not get to become a fourth branch of government, providing rules and edicts all by themselves, and that’s what they have actually been doing.”

Taking control of the firms could allow Trump to more strongly pursue his program.

The dismissal of the two Democratic EEOC commissioners – Samuels and Burrows – enables Trump to replace them with Republicans and provide the five-member commission a conservative majority. One seat was uninhabited before the terminations.

Recently, Trump designated Andrea Lucas, the board’s only Republican, employment as acting chair. With a GOP majority, employment Lucas would be able to more easily pursue her priorities, that include “rooting out illegal DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination” and “defending the biological and binary reality of sex.” The EEOC has the power to open investigations and pursue civil charges against companies it alleges have broken federal laws barring workplace discrimination.

Trump’s firing of the NLRB’s Wilcox imperils long-standing union rights in the United States enforced by the NLRB, legal experts said.

“This has the prospective to lead to rulings that either alter the way the [labor] board is structured or perhaps restrict the board’s ability to work moving forward,” said Kate Andrias, a professor at School.

The NLRB – which manages unionization votes by workers and adjudicates allegations of illegal union busting – has dealt with a flurry of legal obstacles to its constitutionality, brought last year by SpaceX, Amazon and other prominent companies, emboldened by a conservative Supreme Court. (Amazon creator Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Those cases are slowly overcoming the federal court system. But legal specialists state Wilcox’s shooting could move the problem to the high court more quickly.

“The Trump administration together with the designers of Project 2025 are intending to do away with the National Labor Relations Act,” said Seth Goldstein, employment a labor lawyer who has represented Amazon and employment Trader Joe’s workers. He referred to the 1935 law that developed the NLRB and contemporary union rights. “They wish to end worker rights and return us to the Gilded Age,” he said.