During her dozen years as a member of the vacancy-plagued National Labor Relations Board, current Chair Wilma Liebman has experienced a full five-member board, four members, three, two and herself alone for six weeks. Nothing, however, matches the unprecedented 26 months that she and her lone colleague, Peter Schaumber, have spent manning the quasi-judicial body.
The board now faces a “record accumulation of difficulties,” said Liebman in a recent speech to Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. Besides the three, long-vacant seats, she said, there is a U.S. Supreme Court challenge — to be argued this week — that could unravel many of the more than 500 decisions issued by her and Schaumber. And Senate Republicans are blocking President Barack Obama’s nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker who has been “packaged” with two other NLRB nominees.
