NLRB Veteran To Head Labor Board—For Now - John C. Truesdale named to National Labor Relations Board - Brief Article

Nation's Business, Feb, 1999 by James Worsham

Business news in brief from the nation's capital

The National Labor Relations Board, often criticized in recent years by Republicans in Congress, has a new chairman--at least through this year's congressional session.

John C. Truesdale, 77, a retired career NLRB employee and former board member, was named chairman for this year by President Clinton in a recess appointment--one made while Congress is not in session.

"I have no policy agenda," Truesdale says. "I'm not here to send the board in this direction or that." Truesdale is expected to draw less ire from Congress than did his predecessor, William B. Gould IV, who returned to teach at Stanford Law School when his term expired in August and whose opinions were viewed by some lawmakers as excessively pro-union.

Despite Gould's departure, the agency still draws fire from Republicans, and the board remains split on many issues.

Truesdale "will provide a steady and experienced hand in guiding the agency through a potentially difficult period," says Marshall Babson, a former board member and an attorney in the Washington law firm of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak, and Stewart.

Truesdale worked for the NLRB from 1948 to 1957 and again from 1963 until he retired in 1996, He was the board's executive secretary from 1981 to 1994 when not serving on the board, He was a Senate-confirmed member of the board from 1977 to 1980, and he held three previous recess appointments to the board after that, ranging from two to 12 months.

Daniel Yager, general counsel of the Labor Policy Association, a business-supported group, called the appointment "a safe choice" and said he expects Truesdale, a Democrat, to hew more closely to mainstream board precedents than Gould did.

Truesdale said he wants to work with the other four board members--two Democrats and two Republicans--to reduce the pending caseload and "address the question of the prompt issuance of board decisions."

Among the decisions facing the board, according to several labor experts, are ones involving the proper responses by employers to corporate campaigns by unions; the bargaining rights of temporary workers in a union setting; and how employers must deal with unions over replacement workers.

According to the NLRB, the caseload backlog is at about 700. A backlog of 400 to 600 is more typical, but the current figure is still far lower than the high of 1,700 in the mid-1980s.