The Trump administration’s efforts to reverse the direction of federal labor policy appear to have accelerated with a proposal to demote the senior civil servants who resolve most labor cases.
Under the proposal, those civil servants — considered by many conservatives and employers to be biased toward labor — would answer to a small cadre of officials installed above them in the National Labor Relations Board’s hierarchy.
The proposal could pave the way for a pronounced shift in the day-to-day workings of the agency, making it friendlier to employers named in complaints of unfair labor practices or facing unionization drives.
Peter B. Robb, the agency’s general counsel and a Trump appointee, outlined the proposal this month in a conference call with the civil servants, known as regional directors, according to a letter sent by the directors to Mr. Robb.
Mr. Robb, according to the letter, said the agency might hire a handful of district directors, each with authority over a portion of its 26 regions, and proposed lowering the regional directors’ rank within the Civil Service. …
Even many management-side lawyers consider the regional directors effective. “Some people are better than others, but I think the standards are pretty high,” said Steven M. Swirsky, a former field lawyer for the labor board who has spent decades representing employers.