Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s selection to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, has rarely ruled against the National Labor Relations Board in his nearly two decades on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. 

Garland wrote 22 decisions involving the National Labor Relations Board from 1997 to 2016. Hannah Belitz, a Harvard law student who writes for the legal blog On Labor, reported, “In all but four [cases] Judge Garland upheld the entirety of the NLRB’s decision finding that an employer had committed unfair labor practices.”

Said AFT President Randi Weingarten: “Chief Justice Garland is a highly qualified and widely respected jurist who is well-known for carefully deciding cases based on existing law, respect for precedent and the facts presented.”

In 2006, Garland upheld the NLRB’s ruling against Ceridian Corp., an information-services company that refused to meet with a union during nonworking hours and declined to grant union members unpaid leave to participate in bargaining sessions, in violation of labor laws. And in 2001, Garland upheld a NLRB decision that four fired employees should receive full back pay from a building company that had fired them for complaining about wages and working conditions. 

Steve Bernstein, a partner at the national labor law firm Fisher & Phillips, predicted Garland’s appointment would likely flip the Supreme Court decision on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. 

The plaintiffs are challenging the right of public-sector unions to collect fair-share fees from nonunion workers who benefit from collective bargaining. Opening arguments were heard on Jan. 11 and, until the death of Scalia, legal experts expected the ruling would go against the California Teachers Association.

National Law Journal, March 16

Politico, March 16