Top Five Labor Law Developments for April 2026

1. President Donald Trump nominated James Macy to serve as the third Republican Member of the National Labor Relations Board. Macy is a longtime management-side labor attorney and the current director of the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. If confirmed, Macy would give Republicans a 3-1 majority to revisit Biden-era precedent on key labor law doctrines. The current Board, with two Republican members, has adhered to Board practice of declining to reconsider certain prior rulings without three affirmative votes. The administration also renominated Democratic Member David Prouty, whose term expires in August, a move that would help maintain the Board’s quorum. The paired nominations position the agency to both preserve its ability to act and potentially shift its substantive direction toward employer-friendly policies. 
    
2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction against the Biden Administration’s project labor agreement mandate. Associated Builders and Contractors Florida, et al. v. General Services Administration, et al., No. 25-11375 (11th Cir. Apr. 21, 2026). Although the court disagreed with the District Court’s irreparable harm analysis, it concluded that the defendant federal agencies acted within their procurement authority in requiring project labor agreements on large federal construction projects pursuant to the Presidential directive. The panel rejected the contractor group’s arguments under the Competition in Contracting Act, the Federal Property Act, the First Amendment, and other statutes, reasoning in part that the mandate and regulations include exceptions that preserve competition and statutory compliance and fall within presidential procurement authority. The industry group is expected to continue to pursue further challenges. 
    
3. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will review Amazon’s challenge to its Staten Island warehouse union election. The pending dispute stems from Amazon’s objections to the Amazon Labor Union’s victory at the New York facility, its first warehouse to unionize. The case initially sat in the Second Circuit before competing petitions in multiple circuits triggered random circuit selection by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Amazon continues to contest the election results and the Board’s handling of the election, while the Board seeks to enforce its certification decision. The high-profile labor dispute will now face appellate review in the Fifth Circuit, where Bloomberg Law data shows the Board has one of the lowest success rates across the circuits at 62%, adding uncertainty around the outcome. 
    
4. Law360 reported that the Board dismissed cases at a significantly higher rate during the second Trump Administration than previous years. As the agency works through pending unfair labor practice charges, its regional offices dismissed 7,324 charges in 2025, over 2,000 cases higher in comparison to any year since 2017. The uptick reflects internal efforts to manage caseload, work through the remaining backlog, and reallocate resources, rather than any single policy shift. The more aggressive approach to docket management could affect how quickly employers see resolution of pending charges.
    
5. The Board left in place its 2023 precedent restricting severance agreements with broad confidentiality and nondisparagement provisions. Prime Communications, LP, 374 NLRB No. 88 (Apr. 7, 2026). The Board applied McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 48 (2023), in reaffirming that overly broad provisions in severance agreements violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act because they tend to chill employees’ exercise of protected rights. The Board held that provisions barring disparagement, restricting contact with coworkers, or limiting cooperation with agencies unlawfully interfere with Section 7 activity when not narrowly tailored. It also found confidentiality clauses that prohibit disclosure of agreement terms or their existence can deter employees from filing charges or assisting investigations. The decision leaves McLaren Macomb in place for now, even as two Republican Board members noted their willingness to reconsider the standard with a three-member majority. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit did not address the validity of the McLaren Macomb standard, having found the employer’s actions were unlawful on failure to bargain and direct dealing grounds.

Please contact a Jackson Lewis attorney with questions about these and other workplace developments.