Labored Relations: Law, Politics and the NLRB--A Memoir (review)

William B. Gould's appointment as chair of the National Labor Relations Board by President Clinton was greeted by labor with great hope. Union leaders blamed both existing labor law and Republican appointees to the NLRB as contributing causes of years of concession bargaining and steep decline in unionization. Happily for the union movement, Gould was on record favoring many reforms that labor wanted.

Business groups and their Republican allies opposed his nomination with extremes of distortion, accusation, and ideological rhetoric that nearly cost him the job (confirmation took seven months and he received more 'no' votes than any previous nominee). Even worse, Republicans in Congress continued the attacks after he was confirmed and used their control over appropriations to thwart many of Gould's policy initiatives.

Gould's memoir provides chilling details of the attacks and their impacts, as well as offering some context and analysis. He recounts constant demands to appear before various committees to answer hostile, ideologically motivated questions. He extols the Board's structural independence from the Executive, praises the Clinton administration for staying (mostly) scrupulously out of the Board's business, and castigates the previous Bush administration for heavy-handed manipulation of the Board.

Unfortunately most of what we learn is solely from Gould's perspective as the Chairman during this time. We would like to know more about how the Republicans changed the rules and the role of employer and right wing organizations in shaping Republican strategy, but instead of any analysis, we get some bare glimpses through Gould's spectacles.

Likewise, Gould describes many key cases, but his treatment will frustrate most readers by citing some details yet stopping short of providing sufficient background to understand the issues and the reasons for the outcome. Similarly, the reader has to piece together what might have been a terrific story about Fed Ex from two different chapters.

Much worse is Gould's constant use of extensive quotations from his diary. At least one of these ran to nine pages of fine print. These excerpts include copious detail that is irrelevant for most readers, often fail to provide meaningful context, and they serve up endless repetitions of Gould's complaints about his colleagues, especially General Counsel Fred Feinstein and Board Member Sarah Fox.

Some of the conflict clearly arises from cases in which Gould took positions that were threatening to labor. Gould insists that the positions he took were based on "the rule of law", but often fails to explain why the "rule of law" requires his outcome and not another. This is most glaringly true in his scattered discussion of Section 8(a)(2) in which he reveals a remarkable lack of reflection about his own role in the crucial debate over the TEAM Act, completely fails to explain the issues at stake, and offers no more than a romanticized view of the ideal workplace to justify his actions.

One must admire the tenacity and discipline that it must have taken to issue cases in the face of relentless attacks on the NLRB and on him personally. Despite the obstacles, Gould set a high rate of productivity in the first year of his tenure, implemented some of his less controversial reforms, and dramatically increased the use of 10(j) injunctions against employer unfair labor practices.

Yet in this memoir, his disregard for the reader—revealed in his incomplete treatment of important issues, his overuse of diary excerpts, and his attacks on his colleagues—conspires with his evident pride in his frequent lone ranger roles to raise a nagging question: to what extent did his conflicts arise from principled disagreement, and to what extent from self-absorption?

Gould's memoir could have staked out clear arguments for reforming the NLRB and its political context. It could have explained critical issues in labor law that would help readers understand new developments...