On August 7, 2026, the U.S. Senate confirmed James Macy and David Prouty to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Their confirmation gives the Board four members. More importantly, they provide the Board’s Republican majority with a third vote that could mark the beginning of a much more consequential phase for the Trump NLRB.
Republicans have technically controlled the Board since James Murphy and Scott Mayer joined Democratic member David Prouty in January 2026. But the three-member Board has moved relatively cautiously when it comes to overruling major precedent. With Macy joining Murphy and Mayer, Republicans will now hold three of the Board’s four occupied seats. (One seat remains vacant.)
That makes significant changes to federal labor law much more likely.
Who Are the Newly Confirmed NLRB Members?
James Macy is a longtime management-side labor attorney whom President Trump nominated in April 2026. Before joining the Department of Labor during the current administration, Macy spent more than 40 years representing employers in private practice. Macy will serve a term expiring August 27, 2030. Senate records identify his appointment as filling the seat previously held by former Republican Board Chairman Marvin Kaplan.
David Prouty presents a very different perspective. Originally appointed by President Biden in 2021, Prouty has spent much of his career representing unions. Before joining the NLRB, he served as general counsel of SEIU Local 32BJ and previously held senior legal positions with the Major League Baseball Players Association and UNITE HERE. President Trump nevertheless nominated Prouty for another term, consistent with the traditional practice of maintaining some bipartisan representation on the Board. His new term extends through August 27, 2031.
Why Does the Third Republican Vote Matter for the Trump NLRB?
The NLRB already had a quorum and Republican majority before Macy’s confirmation. But there is an important distinction between having two Republican votes and having three.
The Board can decide ordinary cases with a three-member quorum. However, Board members historically have shown some reluctance to make sweeping changes in precedent based only on two affirmative votes. That tradition appears to have influenced the Board during the first several months of 2026.
Murphy and Mayer have already begun shaping Board decisions, but the Board has not yet embarked on a wholesale reversal of the many significant precedents established during the Biden administration. Macy’s arrival removes one practical obstacle to doing so. Employers should therefore expect the pace of change to accelerate.
Which NLRB Decisions Could Be Reconsidered?
There are several obvious candidates.
Workplace Rules and Employee Handbooks
The 2023 Stericycle decision substantially expanded the circumstances in which facially neutral workplace rules can violate the National Labor Relations Act. Under Stericycle, a workplace rule is presumptively unlawful if an employee reasonably could interpret it as having a coercive meaning that restricts Section 7 activity, even if the rule also has a reasonable noncoercive interpretation. That approach replaced the more employer-friendly framework last adopted during the first Trump administration.
Policies addressing confidentiality, workplace conduct, social media use, investigations, and communications (among others) can all potentially raise issues under the current standard. The Republican Board is now likely to reconsider Stericycle and potentially return to a standard providing employers greater flexibility to maintain legitimate workplace rules.
Severance Agreement Restrictions
The Board’s 2023 decision in McLaren Macomb is another likely target. There, the Board held that an employer may violate the NLRA merely by offering employees a severance agreement containing confidentiality or non-disparagement provisions that broadly restrict the exercise of Section 7 rights. The decision reversed Trump-era cases that had taken a more employer-friendly approach.
A new Republican majority could revive some or all of that prior precedent. Employers should not assume that has happened yet, however. McLaren Macomb remains controlling NLRB law unless and until the Board changes it.
Mandatory Meetings During Union Campaigns
One of the Biden Board’s most significant late-term decisions came in Amazon.com Services in November 2024. The NLRB overturned precedent dating to 1948 and held that employers generally cannot require employees to attend meetings at which management expresses its views about unionization. Under the current interpretation, employers may still conduct such meetings, but employees must be told in advance that attendance is voluntary, that there will be no adverse consequences for declining to participate, and that the employer will not keep attendance records.
This prohibition on so-called “captive audience” meetings is an especially strong candidate for reconsideration by the newly constituted Board.
Union Recognition and the Cemex Framework
The Board could also revisit its controversial 2023 Cemex decision. Under Cemex, when a union demands recognition based on claimed majority support, an employer generally must either recognize the union or promptly seek an NLRB election. Moreover, certain employer unfair labor practices during the resulting campaign can result in a bargaining order rather than a rerun election.
The framework is already under substantial judicial pressure. In March 2026, the Sixth Circuit rejected the Board’s application of Cemex in a case involving Brown-Forman, concluding that the NLRB had exceeded its authority in adopting the new framework through adjudication. The original Cemex decision remains under review in the Ninth Circuit.
Given both that judicial skepticism and the new composition of the Board, Cemex appears particularly vulnerable.
Independent Contractors
Independent contractor status is another recurring subject of NLRB reversals. In its 2023 The Atlanta Opera decision, the Biden NLRB rejected the Trump Board’s SuperShuttle approach, which had placed substantial emphasis on a worker’s entrepreneurial opportunity. The Board instead returned to a multifactor common-law analysis in which entrepreneurial opportunity plays a less dominant role.
A Republican majority could once again elevate entrepreneurial opportunity and make it easier in some circumstances to establish independent-contractor status. The standard is critical in some cases, as only employees, not independent contractors, have rights protected by the NLRA.
Bargaining Unit Determinations
The scope of appropriate bargaining units may also change.
The Biden Board’s 2022 American Steel Construction decision restored a standard under which an employer seeking to add employees to a union’s proposed bargaining unit generally must demonstrate that the excluded employees share an “overwhelming community of interest” with those included. That standard can facilitate organizing smaller groups of employees within a larger workplace. The first Trump Board had rejected a similar approach.
Changes Will Not Happen Overnight
Even with three Republican members, existing NLRB precedent does not disappear automatically. The Trump NLRB will have to find the right opportunities to shift policy.
The Board usually changes substantive labor law through cases that present the relevant issue. In significant cases, it may also invite briefing from the parties and interested organizations before deciding whether to overturn precedent. That process can take months.
The federal courts also play an increasingly important role. Board decisions are subject to appellate review, and employers have mounted significant challenges not only to particular NLRB doctrines but also to aspects of the agency’s structure and authority.
Consequently, labor law may become more unsettled before it becomes more predictable. (And even then, it will likely remain beholden to the outcomes of future Presidential elections.)
What Should Employers Do Now?
Employers should not begin disregarding Biden-era NLRB decisions simply because a Republican Board now has the votes to overturn them. Current precedent remains current precedent.
But employers facing union organizing activity, revising employee handbooks, drafting severance agreements, evaluating independent-contractor relationships, or dealing with other NLRA issues should recognize that the legal landscape could look substantially different over the next year. The most significant consequence of Macy’s confirmation may therefore be this: the period of waiting for the Trump NLRB to begin systematically reshaping federal labor law is probably coming to an end.
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