List of Chairs of the National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has five Members, each of whom serves for a five-year term. Terms are staggered so that one Member's term expires each year (although delays in nominations and confirmation, as well as the use of recess appointments, can upset this schedule). Members are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. Traditionally, a majority of the board belongs to the President's political party. The President designates the Chair from one of the existing Members. The Chair serves at the pleasure of the President, and may be demoted without cause or warning at any time.
National Labor Relations Board
The second chair of the NLRB, Harry A. Millis, led the board in a much more moderate direction. Lacking an economic division to give it ammunition to fight with Millis deliberately made the NLRB dependent on Congress and the executive branch for its survival. Millis made a large number of organizational changes. He stripped the office of Secretary of its power, set up an Administrative Division to supervise the 22 regional offices, initiated a study of the Board's administrative procedures, and genuinely delegated power to the regional offices. He removed casehandling and regional office communication from the jurisdiction of the Office of the Secretary and created a Field Division. He also adopted procedures requiring the board made its decisions based solely on the trial examiner's report, authorized NLRB review attorneys to review trial examiner report, required decisions to be drafted ahead of time and distributed for review, authorized review attorneys to revise drafts before a final decision was issued, required trial examiners to emphasize findings of fact and to address points of law, and began holding board meetings when there were differences of opinion over decisions.