They tried it before, but now they're doing it as a team.
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos filed a lawsuit in the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that the National Relations Board is unconstitutional.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is under the aegis of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Part of the Fifth Circuit is the Northern District of Texas. In that district is District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk. You may remember him as the judge who tried to ban Mifipristone, the abortion drug, nationwide.
In the Northern District of Texas, there are 18 judges. Only one of them was installed by a Democrat which was Bill Clinton.
The case is going to be heard by a panel of judges in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Of the Circuit Court judges, only five out of 26 were appointed by a Democratic president.
Elon and Jeff have gone District shopping instead of Judge shopping. It would be hard to find another District that was more designed for conservative Republican goals.
We already know that Bezos and Amazon and Musk and SpaceX, and especially Tesla, are anti-union.
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent Federal agency. But they signed an agreement with the Department of Labor in 2022 to exchange information, training, enforcement and outreach. We haven't seen a nomination for the Secretary of Labor yet, but you can bet it's going to be someone in favor of businessmen like Musk and Bezos.
The last board decision by the NLRB was against Amazon on November 13th 2024. Funny how their lawsuit just sort of happened right after.
Their lawsuit, along with two dozen others, says that the NLRB structure gives it unlimited power to shape and enforce labor law.
Getting rid of the NLRB will make it much harder for unions to form and to take collective action to get better wages and working conditions.
They'll probably go after OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, next. It is directly under the Department of Labor. It ensures safe and healthful working conditions. Companies have to spend money to do the same. So I would see that as a target for corporations in the not too distant future.
Musk and Bezos lawsuit argues that the NLRB structure violates the separation of powers. This is because the board makes decisions and interprets regulations with only limited judicial review.
The President of the United States cannot fire the members of the NLRB, who serve 5-year terms, or its administrative judges.
They also argue that the adjudicating of cases denies them the right of trial by jury. Considering that the agency has been in operation for 90 years makes the General Counsel of the NLRB sees this case by Musk and Bezos as frivolous. The General Counsel is a position that President Trump would be able to fire, just as Biden fired the General Counsel appointed by Trump.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has worked to remove obstacles to union bargaining and outlawing company meetings that try to stop the organizing of unions.
Amazon's case this time was that it refused to collective bargain with the Amazon Labor Union formed in 2022 at the Staten Island warehouse.
Eight employees at SpaceX said they were fired because they were critical of Elon Musk.
Their cases against the NLRB has actually been going on since February of this year, separately. At that time Amazon was illegally retaliating against workers who had formed the union, not for refusing to bargain with the union. SpaceX's case was the same one with the workers. Trader Joe's was also making the case that the NLRB was unconstitutional.
This new case is just Amazon and SpaceX against the NLRB together.
Trump hasn't picked his Secretary of Labor yet, but there are several candidates reportedly being looked at by Trump's transition team. Andrew Puzder, former CEO of CKE Restaurants (Hardee's and Carl's Jr.) was nominated for the job in 2017, but withdrew. He was known for wanting reduced labor regulations because it was a hindrance to economic growth. Screw the worker so the company makes more money is the translation. There our other possibilities, but they all read like Andrew Puzder.
The case against the NLRB was tried 86 years ago and failed. NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. was the company firing workers trying to unionize. The Supreme Court said they were duly empowered by the 1935 National Labor Relation Act. Not unconstitutional. It's covered by a Supreme Court decision, which is why the General Counsel of the NLRB says Musk and Bezos's is a frivolous lawsuit.
The problem is that you've got two of the richest men on Earth working together towards the same goal. You've got Musk's suspect relationship with Trump. Then you've got Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, which refused to do an endorsement of Harris, even though the editorial board was recommending it, causing them to lose hundreds of thousands of digital subscribers. Bezos was obviously trying to protect Amazon and his other businesses at the time. Now he's doing it with the court case.
Musk moved the incorporation of SpaceX from Delaware to Texas in February of 2024. The same time he filed the lawsuit against the NLRB. Amazon is incorporated in Delaware. It's obvious by filing their case in Texas that they're District shopping and judge shopping.
Worse is the composition of the Supreme Court we have now that will hear the case if Musk and Bezos lose in Texas. If they win in Texas, the NLRB will have to defend itself to a court that is less than friendly to labor and civil rights. If they can strike down a Supreme Court decision guaranteeing women's rights of 50 years, they can also strike down a 86 year old decision by another Supreme Court.
Seeing as how the Supreme Court loves to go down a historical path, whether or not it's the right thing to do now, they could look at the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. It started when railroads cut workers pay twice in 8 months. It grew in size until it involved 100,000 workers. There were riots, arson, and gun battles. Over 100 people died and $100 million in property damage. Railroad management did what you would expect railroad management to do. They tried to stop workers from unionizing and used the economic conditions of the time to break unions that had been formed.
This Supreme Court could say that unions can be violent and cause property damage and they have too much influence over business decisions. Obviously, they couldn't outlaw unions, but they could easily find ways to cripple them, like declaring the NLRB unconstitutional.
