Employment & Labor Insider

The five-member Equal Employment Opportunity Commission currently has two vacancies, with a third on the way as the term of Victoria Lipnic (R) expires. Ms. Lipnic has announced that she will not seek another term.

The five-member National Labor Relations Board currently has two vacancies, and Member Marvin Kaplan's term is set to expire in August.

But most of these vacancies may not be with us for long. Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted to send five nominees to the full Senate for confirmation votes. If all are confirmed, the EEOC would have a full slate of members, and the Board would be only one member short.

EEOC

The nominees for the EEOC are Keith Sonderling (R) and Jocelyn Samuels (D) for the two current vacancies, and Andrea Lucas (R) to succeed Ms. Lipnic.

Mr. Sonderling is Deputy Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Ms. Lucas is a labor and employment associate with the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, and worked with Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia when he was a partner with that law firm.

Ms. Samuels is Executive Director of UCLA's Williams Institute, a pro-LGBT rights think tank, who was a member of the Civil Rights Commission during the Obama Administration.

NLRB 

The NLRB nominees are current member Marvin Kaplan (R), whose term will expire in August, and Lauren McFerran (D), an Obama appointee who was a Board Member until her term expired in December 2019. President Trump has yet to nominate a candidate for the last NLRB vacancy.

According to the latest news reports, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he does not know when these nominees will be brought to the floor for a vote.

Some Senate Democrats reportedly oppose the Republican nominees, and some Senate Republicans reportedly oppose the Democratic nominees. Now, there's a shock.