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.
J. Warren Madden
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Madden the first Chair of the newly formed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). His name had appeared on a list developed by Senator Robert F. Wagner and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Madden supported the expanded powers of the NLRB; he had observed the operations of the labor clauses of the previously existing National Industrial Relations Act, which were often stymied by employer refusal to negotiate with union representatives who didn't work for them. He was later to say of this period, "It was all very frustrating."