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.
Donald Richberg
On June 20, 1933, at the request of Hugh S. Johnson, President Roosevelt appointed Richberg general counsel of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the agency established to implement NIRA. Richberg greatly feared that the Act he had helped author was unconstitutional, and spent much of his time in office trying to avoid bringing cases to trial or allowing them to advance through the appellate courts As general counsel, Richberg also was tasked with implementing and defending Section 7(a). Richberg, like NRA Administrator Hugh Johnson, believed Section 7(a) would be self-implementing. But both men were proven wrong: A massive wave of union organizing occurred, and employer resistance to Section 7(a) rights led to employer and union violence, strikes, and general strikes that threatened to disrupt economic recovery. On August 5, 1933, just 46 days after the passage of the NIRA, President Roosevelt established the National Labor Board (NLB) to take over the implementation of Section 7(a). Richberg openly opposed the National Labor Board and its successor agency (the "first" National Labor Relations Board, established on June 29, 1934). In direct contradiction of NLB policy and rulings, he publicly declared that Section 7(a) did not prohibit company unions or the closed shop, opposed the NLB's concept of representational exclusivity, opposed any attempt to impose a requirement of good faith bargaining on employers. Even as a national strike of 200,000 auto workers seemed imminent in February 1934, Richberg joined with Johnson to issue a "clarification" of Section 7(a) in which they declared that company unions were acceptable under federal labor policy.