The NLRB faces legal challenges as SpaceX wins a significant court ruling against its structure.
The National Labor Relations Board lost another argument in the courts last week and this could be a big one. The winner of this case was Space X, which had argued the NLRB’s structure was unconstitutional. Last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Space X was likely to prevail in its case against the agency.
A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday agreed with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two other companies that the U.S. National Labor Relations Board’s structure is likely unlawful and blocked the agency from pursuing cases against them.
The ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first by an appeals court to find that a law shielding NLRB administrative judges and the board’s five members from being removed at will by the president is likely illegal.
The 5th Circuit upheld decisions by three judges in Texas that blocked NLRB cases alleging illegal labor practices by SpaceX, pipeline operator Energy Transfer (ET.N), opens new tab, and Aunt Bertha, which operates a social services search engine, pending the outcome of their lawsuits.
The NLRB had tried to prevent this case from moving forward, but in June their attempts to get a stay also failed in court back in June. The left-wing site The American Prospect says this effectively blows a big hole in what is left of the NLRB’s power.
Before the court was a suit that Elon Musk’s SpaceX had filed against the Board, concerning a pending investigation from one of the Board’s regional attorneys into claims that SpaceX had violated its workers’ rights by firing eight of them for going online to opine that Musk’s online verbal outbursts and abuses actually hurt the company’s standing.
