The Biden administration fired the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a Trump appointee deeply unpopular with prominent labor unions, according to a White House official.
The term of the current general counsel, Peter B. Robb, was not supposed to expire until November, but the administration has a rarely used right to oust him or her prematurely. The general counsel, a Senate-confirmed official, is charged with enforcing the labor rights of private-sector employees and has substantial discretion over which cases the agency brings.
The effort by the administration was reported earlier by Bloomberg Law.
Mr. Robb was a polarizing figure who once proposed demoting the senior government officials who resolve most of the agency’s cases and whom unions accused of seeking to settle a high-profile case against McDonald’s to avoid an adverse decision against the company.
Mr. Robb also argued in a memorandum that Uber drivers should be considered contractors rather than employees and therefore not protected by federal labor law.
Before taking over as the labor board’s general counsel in 2017, he spent most of his career representing employers. He worked on behalf of the Reagan administration in litigation against the union representing air traffic controllers who illegally went on strike in 1981.
