A Day in the (Work) Life

N.D. Texas Judge Grants Permanent Injunction Against NLRB: Aunt Bertha v. NLRB: On May 15, 2026, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas granted final declaratory and permanent injunctive relief to an online social services platform company, ruling that the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) administrative law judges (ALJs) are unconstitutionally shielded from presidential removal and therefore lack authority to prosecute the company for allegedly terminating union organizers. Judge Mark Pittman, relying on the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in SpaceX v. NLRB, also held that NLRB board members’ for-cause removal protections are unconstitutional because the “significant” executive authority they exercise falls outside the narrow exception established in Humphrey’s Executor v. US. The court rejected the NLRB’s argument that it could simply sever the offending removal restrictions and allow the proceedings to continue, finding that no single provision could be excised to cure the structural defect without effectively rewriting statutory text or transforming the agency into something Congress never intended. The decision deepens an existing circuit split, as the Fifth Circuit has upheld injunctions blocking NLRB proceedings on similar constitutional grounds while the Ninth and Third Circuits have held that the Norris-LaGuardia Act prevents federal courts from enjoining cases arising out of labor disputes.


NLRB GC Changes Tune Regarding Campaigns: On May 14, 2026, NLRB General Counsel (GC) Crystal Carey filed a motion in a pending matter urging the NLRB to overturn two 2024 Biden-era decisions — Amazon.com Services LLC and Siren Retail Corp. — that banned employers from holding mandatory captive audience meetings to discourage unionization and from speculating that a union could damage worker-manager relationships. Carey argued that the board should revert to long-standing precedents Babcock & Wilcox (1948) and Tri-Cast (1985), contending that these employer tactics do not violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The motion was filed in connection with a dispute between UPS and Teamsters Local 49, in which Carey sought to withdraw exceptions previously filed by former GC Jennifer Abruzzo challenging an ALJ’s 2024 decision that permitted UPS to use both tactics during a 2022 anti-union campaign at a California warehouse. 


EEO-1 Reporting May Have Sung Its Last Song: On May 14, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) submitted a proposal to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) that would rescind the annual EEO-1 reporting requirement, along with EEO-2, EEO-3, EEO-4, EEO-5, though the text of the proposed rule has not yet been made publicly available. The proposal must still go through the full Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (including approval by the OIRA, publication of a proposed rule, and a public comment period), which typically takes months to complete and is expected to face significant opposition. With current regulations requiring the EEO-1 report to be completed on or before September 30 of each year, employers will likely still need to file their 2025 reports by that deadline unless the proposal moves forward on an expedited basis. The EEOC’s proposal is consistent with the current administration’s broader policy direction, including Chair Andrea Lucas’s concerns about employers’ use of demographic data and the administration’s shift away from disparate impact liability toward a focus on intentional discrimination.


Section 10(j) Injunction Authority Facing Uncertainty in the Courts: Federal appeals courts are currently assessing the viability of one of the NLRB’s most effective tools to protect workers’ rights — its ability to obtain court injunctions against employers under Section 10(j) of the NLRA — following the Supreme Court’s decision in Starbucks v. McKinney. In that case, the Supreme Court settled a prior circuit split by requiring courts to apply the traditional four-factor preliminary injunction test from Winter v. NRDC, rejecting the more lenient two-part tests some circuits had previously used for NLRB petitions. The Second Circuit, applying the new standard, reversed a lower court’s denial and ordered a parking management company to hire unionized workers and bargain with their union, without significantly heightening the analysis for irreparable harm or likelihood of success on the merits. By contrast, the Sixth Circuit reversed a lower court’s grant of an injunction against a Michigan hospital, substantially raising the bar for both irreparable harm and the likelihood of success on the merits, creating a strong disincentive for the NLRB to seek injunctions within its jurisdiction. The circuits have also diverged on whether the NLRB’s delay in filing an injunction petition undermines its case, an issue now central to a pending Seventh Circuit appeal that could shape the standard for Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Legal scholars have described the McKinney decision as an “inkblot test” that courts are reading in vastly different ways, resulting in a deepening circuit split over how rigorously to scrutinize the NLRB’s injunction authority.


Random Beatles Fact
The tune for “Yesterday” came to Paul McCartney in a dream. He originally titled the song “Scrambled Eggs” while he worked on the lyrics. Notably, “Yesterday” was the first Beatles song to feature only one member of the band — Sir Paul! Today, “Yesterday” is one of the most covered songs in the history of music, with over 2,000 versions.

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