YOUR LETTERS: Confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court

President Biden’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, has displayed support for Organized Labor and deserves to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. You can help make this happen.

As a District Court and Court of Appeals judge, Jackson has issued several rulings supportive of the rights of workers and their unions. In her first Court of Appeals decision, AFL-CIO v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, she overturned a policy change by the Trump administration’s FLRA which would have narrowed the right of federal worker unions to bargain over workplace changes. (Historically, federal agencies were required to bargain with their unions if changes had more than a de minimis impact on employment conditions; the Trump FLRA wanted to require bargaining only if the changes had a “substantial impact” on employment conditions.)

As a district court judge, in AFGE V. Trump she invalidated three Trump executive orders which would have limited the bargaining power of unions representing federal government employees.

In AFL-CIO v. NLRB, Judge Jackson issued an injunction against a rule issued by the Trump National Labor Relations Board which was intended to rescind an Obama NLRB rule streamlining Labor Board election procedures. In a 2015 decision, Judge Jackson upheld a labor arbitration award obtained by a UNITE HERE local union, and imposed attorneys’ fees against the company which sought to overturn the arbitration award.

In addition to these pro-union decisions, the AFL-CIO in urging swift Senate confirmation of her nomination noted that, “Judge Jackson’s work as a federal public defender and service on the U.S. Sentencing Commission represents the form of professional diversity unions have been urging President Biden to consider in nominations to the federal bench.”

Missouri residents can help put Judge Jackson on the Supreme Court by calling the office of Senator Roy Blunt (202-224-5721) with a message such as the following: “Tell Senator Blunt to vote in favor of President Biden’s nomination  of Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court.”

GREG CAMPBELL
Hammond and Shinners, P.C.
St. Louis