Labor News & Commentary July 1, 2024 reigns for labor law following the Supreme Court's rulings in recent cases

By Holden Hopkins

Holden Hopkins is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News & Commentary, uncertainty reigns for labor law following the Supreme Court’s rulings in recent cases and labor unions push for more worker voice on federal job training programs.

The Supreme Court issued rulings on Thursday in SEC v. Jarkesy and Friday in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.The Court in Jarkesy held that defendants appearing before administrative law judges have the right to request a federal jury decide their case when the agency seeks financial penalties. And in Loper Bright, the Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defence Council, doing away with “Chevron deference.”

In December, Darin issued a four-part series on what a post-Chevron world could mean for the NLRB, and Jason has also written for the blog on this subject. Prior to this decision, Bloomberg reported that the Department of Labor had already begun to abandon Chevron deference arguments as a defense to challenged regulations. And in an interview with CNN, Professor Sharon Block of Harvard’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy laid out what the Court’s ruling in Loper Bright signals, stating “[t]he least democratic part of the government will determine what kind of protections the American people have … that Congress has entrusted to agencies.”

The impacts of the Jarkesy ruling may be more limited for the NLRB, at least initially. This is because that case dealt with jury trials only in the case of legal remedies, like financial penalties, while the damages the NLRB is entitled to seek are almost entirely make-whole equitable remedies. However, the Department of Labor and other agencies may soon face similar challenges to their uses of administrative law judges.

FULL story at link above.