WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominees to fill vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The Republican-led Senate voted along party lines confirm 97 nominees, including Scott Mayer and James Murphy for the NLRB, giving Republicans a majority on the board.
Mayer most recently served as Boeing’s chief labor counsel. Murphy brings prior NLRB experience, having served as a supervisor, staff attorney senior counsel and chief counsel to multiple board members.
In the first month of his second term, Trump began reshaping the NLRB. Citing opinions that “unduly disfavored” employers, the president fired board member Gwynne Wilcox in January 2025. With only one board member remaining, the NLRB was paralyzed and unable to hear or issue decisions on cases related to unfair labor practices or union representation. In July, the president nominated Mayer and Murphy to fill the board’s vacancies.
The NLRB is an independent federal agency charged with protecting employee rights, enforcing federal labor law and resolving private-sector labor disputes. In addition to addressing a backlog of cases following Wilcox’s firing, Mayer and Murphy are expected to revisit — and potentially reverse — previous ruling viewed as favorable to unions, consistent with the Trump administration’s labor policy record.