Labor Board Member Keeps Job During Appeal, Judge Rules (1)

A judge rejected President Donald Trump‘s request to remove a Democratic appointee from the board that enforces labor laws for the federal workforce while an appeal of her firing moves forward.

Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday declined to grant the government’s request for a stay—which would have effectively re-fired Susan Grundmann, former chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority—while the Trump administration appeals Sooknanan’s finding that her termination at the start of Trump’s term was unlawful to the D.C. Circuit.

The ruling is the latest in the expansive battle by Trump to exert more control over independent agencies.

Trump terminated the leaders of several government boards and commissions—including the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission—raising questions about the scope of presidential power.

Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, ordered Grundmann to be reinstated in March. But that was before the US Supreme Court agreed to halt lower court orders to reinstate NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB member Cathy Harris.

Although the Supreme Court granted a stay in the Wilcox and Harris case in part because it thought the government was likely to show that the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power, Sooknanan found that “this single sentence is not enough to alter the Court’s prior analysis as to the FLRA.”

She said she had already “catalogued the powers wielded by the FLRA” in her previous ruling, ultimately concluding that the FLRA does not exercise substantial executive power.

The three-member FLRA resolves labor disputes between federal workers and management.

Sooknanan said the Trump administration also couldn’t prove it would be harmed by Grundmann remaining in her position because her term ends July 1, allowing Trump to nominate a replacement soon. She also noted the government waited two months to file an appeal, demonstrating a lack of urgency.

“This is not the sort of reaction one expects from a party claiming irreparable injury,” she wrote.

The case is Grundmann v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00425, motion for stay denied 6/13/25.