In today’s news and commentary, Trump fires NLRB Member Wilcox; Abruzzo fired as NLRB GC; Whole Foods workers unionize in Philadelphia; Nebraska state employees ratify new contract; and Utah on verge of banning public-sector unions.

President Trump has fired NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox, the first political firing of a Board Member in the 90-year history of the NLRB. Without Wilcox, a Democratic appointee, the Board will have only two Members remaining, leaving it unable to function. The NLRA states that the President may remove NLRB Members “upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” Whether this provision of the law is constitutional has been the subject of extensive litigation across the country. The Wilcox firing is likely to expedite the Supreme Court’s consideration of those constitutional questions.

President Trump also fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo late on Monday. President Biden fired Trump’s NLRB General Counsel, Peter Robb, on inauguration day in 2021, an unprecedented move that many expected Trump to return in kind last week. Abruzzo’s firing is the latest of several mixed signals that the new Trump administration has sent regarding unions. Trump has nominated Teamsters-backed Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Secretary, but as Esther reported, Chavez-DeRemer appears to have recanted her support for the PRO Act, a bill which would majorly boost union organizing.

Workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted to form the grocery chain’s first union yesterday, with the union winning the election by a vote of 130 to 100. As I covered earlier this month, union supporters at the store had accused Whole Foods (owned by notedly anti-union Amazon) of anti-union tactics such as increased monitoring by the company’s managers and anti-union flyers around the store. Some workers reported that they wanted to re-establish working conditions and benefits that Amazon got rid of after acquiring Whole Foods in 2017. The United Food and Commercial Workers, which will now represent the store’s workers, has accused Whole Foods of unlawfully firing a union supporter.

Nebraska’s largest public-sector union has ratified a new contract with the state that will provide raises of between 6.5% and 19% over two years. The contract includes six weeks of paid maternity leave, an entirely new benefit, and seeks to attract skilled workers to work for the state by offering compensation that outpaces inflation and rising healthcare costs. While the union is still battling Nebraska governor Jim Pillen over a return-to-office order for state workers that took effect last year, the two sides each hailed the new contract as a win, with the union harkening a “new generation of public servants” and the governor’s office celebrating the contract as “fiscally conservative.”

The Utah House of Representatives has passed HB 267, which, as Holt covered last week, would abolish collective bargaining for state employees. Unlike other recent public-sector union crackdowns in other Republican-controlled states, the Utah bill would not carve out an exemption to allow public safety unions for police or firefighters. Some House Republicans defected from the bill; Utah Democrats and unions have spoken out against it.