In today’s News and Commentary, workers and unions organize for International Workers’ Day, and Volkswagen challenges NLRB regional directors.

Under the banner of May Day Strong and slogan “No School, No Work, No Shopping,” unions, community groups, and workers across the country are planning mobilizations to observe International Workers’ Day, or May Day, in what could be the largest May Day mobilization in recent history. Some have connected it to the growing trend of quasi-general strikes, whose resurgence in popularity began with January 23rd’s “Day of Truth and Freedom” in Minnesota. Nationally, unions like the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and the American Postal Workers Union have signed onto the day of mobilization. In Chicago, where International Workers’ Day started as a commemoration of workers killed by police during a rally for the 8-hour workday, the Chicago Teachers Union reached an arrangement with Chicago Public Schools to close school for the day to allow staff and students to attend the rally. Unions supporting the Chicago May Day mobilization include: Chicago Teachers Union, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chicago Federation of Labor, SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Teamsters, National Nurses United, AFGE Locals 704 and 789, and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos. Similarly, in Ashevill, N.C., the Asheville City Association of Educators will lead a walkout, effectively closing local schools for the day. In Boston, high school students have organized several walkouts, and several unions — including SEIU Local 32BJ, Unite HERE Local 26, the Association of Flight Attendants, and IUE Local 201— are organizing local mobilizations.

On April 20th, Volkswagen filed a now-dismissed suit against the NLRB in Texas federal court alleging, among other things, that NLRB Regional Directors have unconstitutional removal protections. Though employers have challenged the NLRB’s constitutionality nearly 50 times since 2023, this is the first such case to focus on NLRB Regional Directors. Volkswagen brought this Texas suit to prevent the NLRB from compelling it to negotiate with a unionizing workplace in New Jersey, asserting that the company’s Texas-New Jersey supply chain made the southern venue appropriate. Though Volkswagen has since dismissed that suit, the seal has been broken on suits claiming that NLRB Regional Directors violate the Constitution. For instance, Rogers Memorial Hospital has raised this theory in a suit to stop representation proceedings at two of its Wisconsin locations. The judge in that case recently denied the company’s request for a TRO and asked for further briefing on a preliminary injunction, in what could turn out to be a metaphorical bellwether case for the novel employer legal theory.