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.
Paul M. Herzog
With World War II ending, President Harry S. Truman appointed Herzog to be Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on June 7, 1945. During his tenure on the NLRB, Herzog became known as one of the nation's foremost experts in labor law and was a swing vote between the board's pro-labor and pro-management members. He provided the critical final vote which gave foremen the right to organize unions, voted to make pensions a subject of mandatory bargaining, agreed that employees who struck for economic reasons were not entitled to vote in decertification elections so long as they remained on strike, and for the first time in NLRB history ruled on the issue of Jurisdictional strikes. Herzog was accused by Congressional and business critics of suppressing corporate freedom of speech, a claim Herzog denied. In several rulings in 1947, he even agreed to expand management speech rights during union organizing campaigns.