The Senate voted to confirm Lauren McFerran, President Obama’s nominee to fill an open seat on the National Labor Relations Board, by a vote of 54-40 late Monday.
The vote ensures that the five-member board, which enforces federal labor law, will continue to have a Democratic majority until at least August 2016, when current board member Kent Hirozawa’s term expires.
McFerran, a former top Democratic staffer on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will replace current NLRB member Nancy Schiffer, whose term expires Dec. 16.
“Ms. McFerran is an incredibly talented lawyer with deep knowledge of labor law. She is a person of sterling integrity and strong character. She will be a great asset to the board and I know she will do an excellent job in this important position,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the HELP committee.
Democrats had raced to confirm McFerran, who had been nominated last month. The Senate’s post-election lame-duck session was their last opportunity to get her through before they cede control of the chamber to the incoming Republican majority in January.
If they had failed, Obama would have needed to renominate McFerran next year. Republican lawmakers, who have complained that board has been too pro-labor under Obama, would have been tempted to simply leave the seat unfilled.
Doing so would have left the five-member board with two Republican and two Democratic appointees and thus no tie-breaking vote on controversial cases.
A coalition of conservative groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute had urged senators to oppose McFerran’s nomination, arguing Monday that too little was known about her. “One month is not enough time to evaluate this important nomination,” the groups said.
The NLRB’s actions have been the subject of several controversies in recent years. The board’s general counsel issued a complaint against Boeing in 2011, arguing that its opening a plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state with little organized labor, amounted to retaliation against its machinists’ union. This was despite the fact that the plant was an expansion, as no other worksite had been closed. Boeing and the union later settled the matter, prompting the NLRB to withdraw the complaint.
Earlier this year, the NLRB’s general counsel said it would treat McDonald’s Corp. as a joint employee in cases charging unfair practices at local franchises, although most of those are technically privately-owned businesses. The announcement shocked business groups, which warned that if the decision becomes a general precedent, the potential legal liabilities would force many corporations out of franchising altogether.
McFerran is Obama’s second pick to replace Schiffer. His previous nominee was Sharon Block. Republicans had objected to Block because she had been one of Obama’s controversial recess appointees to the NLRB in 2012. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Noel Canning v. NLRB that her appointment had been unconstitutional. Obama pulled Block’s nomination on the same day he nominated McFerran.
