Biden Labor Appointee Fires Back At 'Lawbreakers' SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s

The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board took a swipe at SpaceX, Trader Joe’s and Amazon on Friday for challenging her agency’s constitutionality.

Jennifer Abruzzo, a progressive appointee of President Joe Biden, described such companies as “deep-pocket, low-road employers” that were trying to throw the agency off its mission of protecting workers’ rights “because they have the money to do so.”

“It seems to me they would rather spend their money initiating court litigation rather than improving their workers’ lives and their own workplace operations,” Abruzzo said. “So their primary goal, in my mind, is to divert our scarce resources away from protecting workers’ rights to organize and to fight for recognition and respect for the value that they add to their employers’ operations. And that is not going to happen.”

She added that the employers were trying to “divert attention away from the fact that they are lawbreakers who need to be held accountable in a timely manner.”

Abruzzo’s remarks, delivered as part of a panel put on by the Roosevelt Institute think tank, appear to be her first public comments regarding the legal effort to undermine her agency, long a punching bag for Republican lawmakers and anti-union forces.

The NLRB oversees private-sector union elections and investigates “unfair labor practices” committed by employers and unions. It has a prosecutorial arm — now run by Abruzzo — as well as a separate five-member board that interprets the law and rules on cases. The agency was created in 1935 to promote collective bargaining and foster labor peace.

Abruzzo’s office alleges that SpaceX, the aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, illegally fired eight workers who had openly criticized the