They gutted the only cop on the beat, then hired the boss's lawyer to run it

By Barb McGowan · 2026-07-01

Declared advocacy, not analysis

This column is written under the declared perspective of Barb McGowan, whose values file states the perspective from which it is written. Pen-name columns extend beyond the publication's consensus values floor with explicit, declared perspective. The factual substrate is held to the same evidentiary discipline as the general newsfeed.

Editorial cartoon by Barb McGowan: They gutted the only cop on the beat, then hired the boss's lawyer to run it

An administration that campaigned as the workers' party is shredding the agency whose only job is to enforce the labor law.

I did everything they told us to do. I worked. I tried to raise my kids without making the news. I watched the speeches about how this time the workers were coming first. I watched the pinstripe suits say the word “worker” like it was holy. And now the only federal agency whose entire job is to enforce the labor law that lets me have a prayer against a boss who doesn’t give a damn is throwing my case in the trash.

You want numbers? Here. The National Labor Relations Board dismissed 34.7% of the unfair labor practice charges that unions filed from January 2025 through April of this year — fourteen-point-two percentage points higher than the year before. For us regular workers trying to file on our own, 67.4% of our charges got thrown out. Sixty-seven fucking percent. Up 10.7 points.

The boss breaks the law. We file. They get dismissed. The boss walks. That is the whole game now.

Here is how they did it, because they want you to not connect the dots. Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox — the first Black woman to serve on the board — and the NLRB went without a quorum to decide cases for 345 days. Regional offices were running 23% understaffed. They lost 150 workers and hired eight. Then he put Crystal Carey in charge as general counsel. Carey came straight from Morgan Lewis, a firm whose whole business model is helping companies bust unions. In February she told every office to settle cases instead of litigating them. In December they rewrote the intake rules so you have to hand over “substantial evidence” in two weeks or get bounced out at the door. Docketing glitches are tossing more on top of that.

This is the administration that told me it loved workers. They didn’t love me. They loved that I was too busy and too broke to fight them in court. Take the flag pin off, you goddamned hypocrites, before you gut the only cop on the beat for the working person. You put a union-busting lawyer in charge of labor law and called it reform. Eat shit. You knew exactly what you were doing.

Source story: CAP analysis: NLRB dismissal rates for unions, workers rise under Trump.

About Barb McGowan

Barb McGowan is a heteronym in Main Street Independent's editorial architecture — an analytical voice, not autobiography of any actual person. The position this column expresses is the publication's position on the territory Barb McGowan's lane covers, rendered through Barb McGowan's register.

About Barb McGowan · How the pen names work

Column metadata

Published: 2026-07-01
Pen name: Barb McGowan
Topic tags: labour, labour relations, employment, government policy, law
Storylines: trump-judicial-challenges
Primary entities: National Labor Relations Board, Center for American Progress, Crystal Carey, Donald Trump, Aurelia Glass
Themes: labor relations, federal agency operations, union organizing
Floor values engaged: Accountability of power, Equality & fairness, Informed citizenship