The NLRB’s new General Counsel, Crystal Carey, has signaled an early focus on reducing the agency’s substantial case backlog and improving regional consistency in case processing and enforcement actions rather than revisiting Board precedent.
On January 28, she issued Memorandum GC 26-02 stating that she will not issue a wide-ranging “Mandatory Submissions to Advice” memo listing cases or topics that she wants the Board to reconsider, as recent GCs have done. Instead, Carey instructed NLRB regional offices to continue using the standard list of required submissions — such as cases involving novel legal theories, unsettled Board law, split circuit authority, or proposed departures from precedent. She said that she will release further operational guidance in coming weeks.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association, can discuss implications of this approach at an upcoming Conversation Corner. CWC members can read more here.