What to expect from NLRB General Counsel Carey: A roadmap of her labor policy priorities

In a memo issued on August 26, 2026, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Crystal Carey has identified a number of areas in which she has actively challenged or indicated an intention to revisit existing Board precedent. Her positions reflect a broader effort to reconsider recent expansions of the Board’s interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the remedies available for unfair labor practices.

• Severance agreements: Carey has argued that the Board should reconsider precedent holding that employers violate Section 8(a)(1) by offering severance agreements containing broad confidentiality or non-disparagement provisions.

• Consent orders: Carey has urged the Board to restore the ability of administrative law judges to approve consent orders resolving unfair labor practice cases without the agreement of the General Counsel or the charging party.

• Work rules: Carey has argued that the Board should reconsider the heightened, employee-focused standard for determining whether facially neutral workplace rules unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights under the NLRA.

• Captive-audience meetings: Carey has advocated reversing precedent holding that employers violate the NLRA by requiring employees to attend meetings during which the employer expresses its views concerning unionization or union organizing.

• Employer predictions concerning unionization: Carey has indicated that she does not share her predecessor’s restrictive approach to employer communications concerning the potential consequences or effects of unionization, suggesting that she may favor greater latitude for employers to make predictions about unionization during organizing campaigns.

• Dress codes and union insignia: Carey has challenged the more restrictive standard governing employer dress-code and uniform policies that limit employees’ ability to display union insignia, signaling a willingness to reconsider the circumstances under which such policies may lawfully be enforced.

• Management rights and waiver of bargaining: Carey has argued that the Board should reconsider precedent narrowing employers’ ability to make changes to terms and conditions of employment without first bargaining, particularly where a collective bargaining agreement contains management-rights language that arguably authorizes the employer to make the change unilaterally.

• Bargaining orders: Carey has indicated that she intends to challenge the framework substantially expanding the circumstances in which the Board may issue a bargaining order following an employer’s unfair labor practices during a representation election. She has characterized that framework as inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent and sound labor policy.

• Bargaining before changes to terms and conditions of employment: Carey has indicated that she intends to challenge precedent requiring employers to bargain over proposed changes to terms and conditions of employment even where the employer has an established past practice of implementing such changes unilaterally.

• Union dues and objector rights: Carey has indicated that she intends to reconsider the disclosure obligations unions owe to employees who pay agency fees or otherwise object to subsidizing union activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

• Protected concerted activity and employee misconduct: Carey has identified as problematic precedent broadly protecting employee misconduct occurring in connection with otherwise protected concerted activity, particularly where the misconduct has only a tenuous connection to the underlying protected activity.

• Dues checkoff following contract expiration: Carey has indicated that she intends to challenge precedent requiring employers to continue honoring dues-checkoff provisions after expiration of the underlying collective bargaining agreement, particularly where employees are pursuing decertification or other efforts to end the union’s representational status.

• Enhanced remedies: Carey has indicated that she intends to challenge the Board’s authority to award consequential economic damages beyond traditional make-whole remedies for unfair labor practices, noting that courts have repeatedly questioned or rejected the Board’s authority to impose such remedies.

Looking ahead 

Carey made clear that this list is “not all inclusive of [her] positions, current or future.” Even in its current form, the memo sketches a sweeping agenda. With the Board’s Republican majority now at full strength following James Macy’s confirmation in early August, the machinery to act on these priorities is finally in place, and the landscape of NLRB precedent is likely to shift significantly in the months ahead.

Reed Smith will continue to monitor developments and report on decisions as Carey’s priorities take shape.