A federal court has determined that Donald Trump’s sudden firing of a former senior official at the top US labor watchdog was illegal and ordered her to be resurrected.
Gwynne Wilcox was the first member of the National Labor Relations Committee, which was removed by the President of the United States since the board began in 1935.
The American Constitution framer revealed that “no one in our system of government was intended to be king – the president included not just his name, but the president,” Judge Howell wrote in the ruling.
Howell governed a hearing held on Wednesday in a motion seeking summary judgment in the District of Columbia. “The President has no authority to terminate any members of the National Labor Relations Committee freely. His attempt to fire his plaintiff from her position on the board was a blatant violation of the law,” she wrote.
“Presidents who promote their image of themselves as “king” or “dictator” are fundamentally misconstruing their role under Article II of the US Constitution, perhaps as a vision of effective leadership,” Howell wrote.
Article 2 of the US Constitution outlines the executive power and responsibility of the President. Howell continued. “In our constitutional order, the President is tasked with being a conscientious custodian of the law, albeit energetically, to fulfill his enumerated duties, including laws enacted by Congress and laws interpreted by the judicial system.”
Wilcox filed a lawsuit earlier last month, claiming that her removal was a “blatant violation” of the National Labor Relations Act. Her removal leaves the board with only two members, and there is a shortage of at least three members quorum needed to control the case.
“I’m ready to go back to work,” Wilcox said after hearing in a speech outside court today. “I’m not the only one who’s that, but I’m happy to be the face of this fight.”
Her lawyer, Deepak Gupta, pointed out that this was the beginning of a long battle.
Wilcox was confirmed by the Senate in September 2023 and is scheduled to serve until August 2028. She sought a declarative ruling awarding illegal and injunctions that allowed the appointment to be completed.
The White House defended her removal, defending the removal of the NLRB general counsel, claiming that “these are far left appointees with a fundamental record of overturning labor laws over the years, and that they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump administration.”
During the hearing, Howell told the court that the Trump administration argued that the law argued that the law banning the removal of the board was unconstitutional. Similar debates have been made in response to labor law enforcement actions against businesses by SPACEX, Amazon and other employers in recent lawsuits against NLRB.
Howell explained the U.S. Supreme Court precedent for Humphrey’s enforcers. This was a 1935 case in which the court ruled that a member of the Federal Trade Commission was illegally removed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Former NLRB chairs and Labour leaders criticized the removal of Wilcox, claiming that the precedent set by the Supreme Court undermined the NLRB’s independence and effectively halted US federal labor law enforcement.
The AFL-CIO, the largest union federation in the United States, held a rally outside the courthouse in support of Wilcox at a hearing Wednesday.
“A week after taking office, President Trump effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), putting the NLRB’s independence at risk and illegally fired Wilcox, the first black woman to serve on the board,” the AFL-CIO said.
