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Left: Gwynne A. Wilcox (National Labor Relations Board). Right: President Donald Trump gives remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion the Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
An employee of the National Labor Relations Board who was fired by President Donald Trump is firing back in court with a federal lawsuit, calling her removal “unprecedented and illegal.”
Gwynne A. Wilcox called her Jan. 27 firing by late-night email a blatant violation of the National Labor Relations Act, which allows the president to remove board members only in cases of “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause,” and only after “notice and hearing,” according to the complaint.
“The President’s unprecedented removal of Ms. Wilcox defies 90 years of Supreme Court precedent that has ensured the independence of critical government agencies,” Deepak Gupta, an attorney for Wilcox, said in a statement. “Federal law is clear: The members of the National Labor Relations Board may only be removed for neglect of duty or misconduct, and only after a notice and a hearing. The President has violated the law.”
“To ensure that the Board can continue protecting American workers, this lawsuit seeks a ruling reinstating Ms. Wilcox as a member of the NLRB,” he added. “We trust that the courts will uphold the law’s longstanding protections for agency independence.”
In a statement, Wilcox, a Joe Biden appointee to the independent federal agency that enforces labor laws and protects workers’ rights to organize, said, “President Trump’s attempt to remove me from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is both unlawful and unprecedented. When Congress established the National Labor Relations Board almost 90 years ago, it made sure that the law would protect its independence from political influence. My removal, without cause or process, directly violates that law. I hope to be able to fulfill the job that the Senate confirmed me to do so the crucial work of the NLRB can continue.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment, POLITICO reported. A Trump administration official has told the news outlet that Wilcox and Jennifer Abruzzo, a general counsel at the NLRB who was also fired, were “far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump Administration, which was given a mandate by the American people to undo the radical policies they created.”
The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s action against Wilcox is part of a string of openly illegal firings in the early days of the second Trump administration that are “apparently designed to test Congress’s power to create independent agencies like the Board.”
In a statement after her firing, Abruzzo said, “It’s been the greatest honor and privilege to be General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and to work alongside such talented and dedicated federal employees.”
“We have accomplished so much through our robust education, protection, and enforcement efforts, including empowering workers to collectively seek improved wages, benefits and working conditions from their employers,” she added. “There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle. So, if the Agency does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace, as well as a fair share of the significant value they add to their employer’s operations.”