United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator:
On behalf of our 3 million members and the 50 million students they serve, we urge you to confirm David Prouty for a second term on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). We also urge you to remove from the en bloc package—and consider individually—the nominations of James Macy to the NLRB and Charlton Allen as general counsel for the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). Votes on these issues may be included in NEA’s report card for the 119th Congress.
As a member of the NLRB for the last five years, David Prouty has been a voice for workers and a force for reason. Before joining the NLRB, he was General Counsel of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ, the largest labor union for property service workers in the country with over 175,000 members. Prouty was also General Counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association and the 300,000-member labor union UNITE HERE.
The nomination of James Macy deserves further scrutiny. At his confirmation hearing, he refused to commit to deciding cases impartially based on the law and the facts—especially concerning in light of Executive Order 14215, “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” which forbids “advance[ing] an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion.” Macy needs to answer this fundamental question: Do you believe the president has the authority to interpret the law and remove NLRB members because he disagrees with their decisions?
The nomination of Charlton Allen as general counsel for the FLRA also needs further scrutiny. He has no evident interest in labor relations—the focus of the job for which he has been nominated—and a record of extreme stands far outside the mainstream of either the Republican or Democratic party. As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Allen founded a campus magazine with overtly antisemitic and racist content—one cover depicted a Jewish candidate for student body president with a pitchfork and horns, while another showed a black student at the center of a target. As a candidate for state representative, Allen opposed collective bargaining rights for public employees, benefits like paid sick leave, and the minimum wage.
We thank the committee for the opportunity to submit these comments and recommendations.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Johnson Trinca
Director of Government Relations
National Education Association
