Washington, D.C.–President Joseph Biden has named Board Member Lauren McFerran Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Biden’s executive order was among many he signed on Wednesday on his first day in office as president.
McFerran served as a member of the NLRB from December 17, 2014 until December 16, 2019. On July 29, 2020, the Senate confirmed her renomination as a Board Member for a term expiring on December 16, 2024.
“It is a tremendous honor to assume the Chairmanship of the NLRB,” McFerran said. “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to continue serving with our extraordinary agency staff in this new capacity. In these turbulent times for working people, the mission of the Board and the rights we protect are more important than ever. I look forward to this new chapter in the Board’s work, redoubling our efforts to serve the Act’s goals — ‘encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and . . . protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association.’”
The NLRB also consists of Member John Ring (previously NLRB Chairman), whose term expires on December 16, 2022; Member Marvin Kaplan, whose term expires on August 22, 2025; and Member William Emanuel, whose term expires on August 27, 2021. One Board member seat is currently vacant.
Prior to her appointment to the NLRB, McFerran served as Chief Labor Counsel for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP Committee) and also previously served the Committee as Deputy Staff Director under Senator Tom Harkin. She began working on the HELP Committee as Senior Labor Counsel for Senator Ted Kennedy. Before her work in the United States Senate, Ms. McFerran was an associate at Bredhoff and Kaiser, P.L.L.C., and served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Carolyn Dineen King on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. McFerran received a B.A. from Rice University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
