IFPTE Urges Senate HELP Committee to Advance NLRB General Counsel Nominee to Floor Vote

This week, ahead of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee’s consideration of Jennifer Abruzzo’s nomination for General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), IFPTE sent a letter urging Senators on the Committee to advance Abruzzo’s nomination to a confirmation vote.

On Wednesday afternoon, the HELP Committee voted along party lines and failed to move the nomination out of Committee. IFPTE will continue to reach out to Senators and urge them to vote for Abruzzo so that working people and the public has a functioning NLRB that conducts fair and timely investigations and enforcement of labor law violations.

IFPTE’s letter noted Abruzzo’s wealth of experience over a 23 year career at the NLRB where she started as a field attorney and served in leadership roles as Deputy General Counsel and Acting General Counsel. Most recently, Abruzzo worked at the Communications Workers of America union as Special Counsel for Strategic Initiatives.

IFPTE’s letter notes that. if confirmed, “Abruzzo’s qualifications and accomplishments at the NLRB would be a critical asset for repairing the resource deficiencies that have recently plagued the agency.” In recent years, the mismanagement at the NLRB has left regional offices and the headquarters office understaffed, while budgeted funds went unspent. Instead of focusing on hiring and addressing staffing shortages, the previous NLRB General Counsel moved forward with a plan to consolidate regional offices that would have negatively impacted the quality and efficiency of handling unfair labor practices and issues relating to union representation cases.

The NLRB General Counsel is responsible for investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practice charges as well as administering NLRB regional and headquarters offices.

Read IFPTE’s letter to the Senate HELP Committee here [PDF].