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Jon Anderson

A formidable advocate with years of experience, Jon helps guide education and healthcare clients through a broad range of labor and employment matters. He focuses his practice on assisting school districts, colleges, universities and healthcare clients through complex labor and employment matters such as leadership transitions, collective bargaining, policy and personnel administration.

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On August 26, 2026, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Crystal S. Carey issued Memorandum GC 26-04, “Further Guidance Regarding General Counsel Priorities,” identifying the Board precedents she has already asked, or intends to ask, the Board to reconsider. For employers, the memo is best read as a roadmap: it signals where the General Counsel’s office will be pushing to unwind previous Board law, and where employers currently defending unfair labor practice charges may want to preserve arguments for later review.

United States National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

Settling cases before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) became an increasingly difficult task under the prior administration, where the terms of agreements were often dictated by General Counsel directives insisting on specific remedies, types of remedies, or specific terms in agreements. For employers and labor attorneys seeking to resolve cases, pursuing a settlement was often a frustrating process, with too much time spent trying to work around these directives to facilitate an equitable settlement. Frequently, the directives meant cases did not settle until administrative law judges were assigned and hearings scheduled. These delays increased costs, heightened conflict, and did little to encourage labor peace. A new GC memo issued on Friday, May 16, 2025, will help change that.

Between the close of business on Monday, January 27 and the following morning, President Trump discharged Jennifer Abruzzo from her duties as the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Jessica Rutter was elevated from deputy general counsel to acting general counsel, the agency announced Tuesday.

It was anticipated that President Trump would remove Abruzzo in the manner President Biden terminated General Counsel Peter Robb on inauguration day. The President’s authority to remove the general counsel was upheld by the courts.

Under a typical election scenario, a union files an election petition with the Board’s Regional Office, along with a “showing of interest” demonstrating enough employee support (at least 30% of the unit described in the petition) to justify an election. The union also serves the petition on the employer, along with a description of Board procedures, informing parties of their rights and obligations in the process, and a “statement of position” form.

On August 2, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) issued its anticipated ruling in Stericycle, Inc., reversing the Trump-era Boeing decision that famously implemented a three-category test for balancing whether workplace rules unlawfully interfered with employees’ rights to engage in “protected concerted activity” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”).

According to a recent Gallup poll, 71 percent of Americans “approve of labor unions,” up three percentage points from 2021.

This represents a generational high-water mark for union support – the last time Gallup measured a higher union approval rating among the American public was 1959 when 73 Americans approved of labor unions. Prior to this year, union support had remained lower than 70% ever since union support dropped to 66 percent in 1967. The low-water mark was reached in 2009 when unions enjoyed only 48% support from the American public.

On August 29, 2022, the NLRB issued its decision in Tesla, Inc., overruling precedent that allowed employers to enforce facially-neutral dress codes to prohibit wearing non-conforming attire, including union insignia and union logos. Now, employers must allow employees to wear union attire absent a showing of “special circumstances.”

It has become increasingly apparent that the Biden Administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is aggressively pushing labor-friendly positions, like those seen under the Obama Administration.

Now it appears the NLRB’s General Counsel has taken aim at Section 8(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act), and in so doing undermines 75 years of jurisprudence as “incorrectly concluded.”

On April 7, 2022, the NLRB announced the General Counsel’s desire to restrict employers’ ability to speak to their employees about unions, whether in so-called “captive audience” meetings, or whether “cornered by management while performing their job duties.” The General Counsel claims such meetings and conversations “inherently involve an unlawful threat that employees will be disciplined or suffer other reprisals if they exercise their protected right not to listen to such speech.”

On November 5, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor, through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), issued an Emergency Temporary Standard to Protect Workers from Coronavirus (ETS). The ETS covers employers with 100 or more employees—firm or company-wide—and provides options for compliance. The ETS requires covered employers to develop, implement, and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. Alternatively, covered employers may adopt a policy requiring employees to choose between vaccination and regular COVID-19 testing and wearing a face covering at work. The ETS also requires covered employers to provide up to four hours of paid time to workers to get vaccinated and to allow for paid leave to recover from side effects.