SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER

12,000 EMPLOYEES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UNIONIZE WITH UAW

Research Professionals & Student Support Professionals Unionize Across 10 UC Campuses On September 2, 2025, the California Public Employee Relations Board announced the results of a representation election for more than 7,000 Research and Public Service Professionals at the University of California. In an overwhelming victory, more than 83% of voters chose to unionize with UAW. These workers make essential contributions to the UC’s research mission but have long worked without the benefits and protections they deserve. SSDS attorneys advised UAW throughout the organizing campaign and PERB proceedings and will continue providing support as these workers seek a strong first contract. At a time of historic uncertainty for higher education workers, union representation has never been more important. This victory comes on the heels of nearly 5,000 Student Support and Advising Professionals also choosing to unionize with UAW earlier this year. With support from SSDS, these workers were granted recognition in April 2025. Student Support and Advising Professionals deliver crucial services to UC students and to the public, and they are now in the process of bargaining an inaugural contract. Together, these victories represent one of the largest union organizing campaigns in the nation this year.  

ATTORNEY SPOTLIGHT: JUDY LEE CELEBRATES 25th ANNIVERSARY AT SSDS

“With this one life, I want to be part of the fight.” –Judy Lee Judy Lee is an attorney at SSDS specializing in employee benefits law, with an emphasis on health and welfare plans. In her twenty-five years at the firm, she has become a pivotal member of the firm’s employee benefits and ERISA practice. Judy joined SSDS in April of 2000. By fall of 2003, she moved to Minnesota and has been working remotely ever since. Prior to joining the firm, she became well-versed in employee benefits while practicing business law. She made the decision to join SSDS because she resonated with the idea of working at a union-side labor and employment firm whose values aligned with her own. In her own words, she wanted to work “on behalf of workers, instead of making rich people richer.”The work Judy does at SSDS primarily concerns collectively-bargained joint labor-management trust funds that the firm represents. Her main task is to ensure that the trust funds stay in compliance with federal and state laws. She describes the work as “collaborative,” but stated that, on occasion, her Union Trustee clients have called for her to go to bat for participants who have been denied coverage, noting instances where participants have had post-surgical care or gender-affirming care denied, and has successfully argued for participants to receive coverage for necessary life-altering medical care. Outside of work, she is incredibly family oriented. Working remotely from Minnesota grants her the ability to live a life where she can be home and present for her two children while still helping members through her work. In her free time, she enjoys music, cooking, traveling, fashion and watching movies – especially westerns. She also has a special interest in jewelry making and sewing.

Earlier this year, Donald Trump dismissed Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board, leaving the Board without a quorum, and thus, unable to conduct regular business.

In 2021, Gwynne Wilcox became the first Black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. On January 27, 2025, Donald Trump dismissed Wilcox from the Board, effective immediately. No cause was cited, but three senior officials later disclosed that Wilcox allegedly had been removed because she had “publicly championed diversity, equity, and inclusion” – values which were misaligned with the values of the incoming Trump administration.

Wilcox is the first board member to be fired since the NLRB was created 90 years ago. At the time of her dismissal, Wilcox’s termination left the Board with only two members.

Wilcox filed suit challenging her termination. On March 6, 2025, a federal judge ordered her to be reinstated to the Board to complete her five-year term. The Court found that the “president does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire [Wilcox] from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law.” Thereafter, Wilcox returned to work pending appeal.

On March 28, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Wilcox would remain off the Board—a decision that the Supreme Court upheld on May 22, 2025.

In dissent, Justice Kagan—joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson—wrote that the majority’s decision “favors the President over our precedents,” emphasizing that the ruling directly conflicts with the 90-year-old precedent established by Humprey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), a case that has guided the structure of agencies for as long as the NLRB has existed.

The Supreme Court’s May 22, 2025, decision rendered the Board with only two sitting members: Marvin Kaplan and David Prouty. Kaplan’s term ended last week on August 27, 2025, leaving Prouty as the Board’s only current member.

On July 17, 2025, Trump nominated two Republicans to fill vacant seats on the Board. Scott Mayer, Chief Labor Counsel as Boeing, and James Murphy, a career NLRB attorney who previously served as Chief Counsel for multiple Republican board members, including Marvin Kaplan.

Without a quorum, the Board is unable issue decisions or engage in rulemaking. The NLRB’s regional offices, however, still have the ability to conduct union elections, certify election results, issue 10(j) injunctions, and investigate unfair labor practice charges

SSDS PARTNER MARGO FEINBERG’S LECTURE PUBLISHED IN BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR LAW

In 2024, SSDS Attorney Margo Feinberg was the speaker for the annual David E. Feller Memorial Lecture at UC Berkeley. The lecturer is sponsored by the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law (BJELL), which every year invites a labor law expert to speak about their work to honor the memory of David E. Feller, the beloved labor law professor and advocate. Ms. Feinberg’s lecturer has been published in the latest issue of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and can be read here.

SSDS ASSISTS IN FIGHT AGAINST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ATTACKS ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND PUBLIC RESEARCH

The Trump administration has pursued billions of dollars in cuts to public research funding, threating the jobs of countless workers and imperiling their life-saving research projects. UAW members have been on the front lines of the campaign to fight back against these cuts. In April 2025, thousands of UAW Region 6 members across the western United States held rallies as part of the Kill the Cuts National Day of Action.

A coalition of attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in February 2025 over its cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. With guidance from SSDS attorneys, UAW Local 4811 participated in the suit, which immediately resulted in a temporary restraining order halting the unlawful cuts. The court granted a preliminary injunction blocking the cuts the following month. This victory helped safeguarded crucial medical research and delivered a blow to the administration’s attempts to politicize science at the expense of workers and the public.

SSDS attorneys continue to advise UAW as it pursues novel organizing and legal strategies to defend the next generation of scientific researchers.

NLRB’S ACTING GENERAL COUNSEL OVERHAULS NLRB POLICIES

On February 3, 2025, William B. Cowen was appointed the Acting General Counsel of the NLRB following the termination of Jennifer Abruzzo. Prior to his appointment, Cowen served as the Regional Director at the NLRB’s Regional Office (Region 21) in Los Angeles. In his time as Acting GC, Cowen has undone some of the pro-union and pro-worker wins won during the Biden Administration. On February 14, 2025, in one of his first acts as Acting GC, he issued a memorandum rescinding certain prior GC memoranda. In total, he rescinded about thirty memos spanning from 2021—2025. These rescissions were purportedly done in the name of governmental efficiency, but they come as an enormous cost to workers. On May 16, 2025, the Acting GC issued a memorandum that narrows the scope of mandatory remedies with respect to such settlements. This memo is a stark reversal of the policy established by the Board’s 2022 Thryv, Inc. decision, wherein the Board held that employees could recover for any financial harm that “directly” or “foreseeable” resulted from the employer’s ULP. Acting GC acknowledged that this new standard was advocated by the dissent—rather than the majority—in the Thryv, Inc., decision. On June 25, 2025, Acting GC Cowen issued a memo establishing a bright-line rule declaring that surreptitious recording of collective bargaining negotiations constituted a per se violation of the NLRA under 8(a)(5) and 8(b)(3) of the Act. On July 30, 2025, Acting GC issued a memo directing NLRB Regional Directors to refer cases in which it is unclear whether the NLRB or the National Mediation Board (“NMB”) has jurisdiction to the NMB. The NMB oversees labor relations in the railroad and airline industries, pursuant to the Railway Labor Act. The NLRB recently referred a pending SpaceX proceeding to the NMB for its opinion on jurisdiction. Crystal Carey, a management-side labor attorney, has been nominated as the new NLRB General Counsel. In her confirmation hearing held on July 16, she declined to agree that the NLRB itself is constitutional, expressed disapproval of a precedential Board decision that ruled captive- audience meetings to be a violation of the NLRA, and declined to comment on whether she believed that Amazon drivers are employees with union rights. No vote on Carey’s nomination has been scheduled yet.

SSDS ASSISTS INTERNATIONAL WORKERS FACING UNLAWFUL VISA REVOCATIONS

In March 2025, the Trump Administration began revoking thousands of student visas without any justification or legal basis. These international scholars, including many UAW members, make essential contributions to lifesaving research projects and are valued members of their university communities. However, many of these workers lacked the information and resources they needed to respond to the frightening news that their immigration status was in jeopardy. UAW and its members immediately stepped up to defend their colleagues. With support from SSDS, UAW set up a rapid response network to provide resources to international scholars facing unlawful visa revocations. International scholars from around the country relied on SSDS attorneys, who were available to provide resources and referrals seven days a week during the crisis. In April 2025, the Trump administration reversed its unlawful policies and reinstated previously revoked student visas, thanks to the resistance of advocates, workers, and unions nationwide.

FIFTH CIRCUIT FINDS THE NLRB TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

In a consolidated appeal, three employers—SpaceX, Energy Transfer, and Findhelp—each filed suits challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB’s structure. Specifically, they challenge the for-cause removal protections shielding both Board Members and Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). Judges in the three district court cases in Texas granted preliminary injunctions, halting agency proceedings. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunctions, finding that the for-cause firing shields for NLRB members and ALJs are not constitutional. The fifth circuit is the first, and so far, the only, federal court of appeals to rule that the NLRA is unconstitutional.  

SSDS ATORNEYS OUT AND ABOUT