Regulating labor relations amid Trump’s return to office

Timothy Connick has been an attorney for four decades with a focus on employment litigation and representing clients, such as the New York State United Teachers, American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, before he was appointed chair of the state Public Employment Relations Board in June 2024. Connick has sought to reduce the backlog of administrative law decisions, help farm laborers resolve disputes with their employers and explain the board’s role in labor relations statewide. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You came on as chair of the state Public Employment Relations Board last year. Can you explain a little about what the relatively low-profile board does?

I started in mid-June and the (Public Employment Relations Board) in the public sector regulates labor relations between public employers and employee organizations and the employees to an extent. We make sure the rules are followed and public employers negotiate terms and conditions of employment and the employee organizations are not getting away from the public employer completing their mission. That’s the biggest part of what we do.

In the private sector, there’s a small piece of the economy that the National Labor Relations Board doesn’t regulate, and we have authority in that area. In recent times, we’re one of the few states that have recognized the ability of farm laborers to collectively bargain. We recognized their ability to bargain in 2021. Farm laborers like other employees can ask to be represented by a union and if the union is recognized, they can get collective bargaining agreements governing the terms and conditions of employment.

We have produce farms, dairy farms and there’s a cannabis farm in Brooklyn, there’s wineries, it’s people who work on the farm.

What are your top goals or objectives in this role?

My two goals are to reduce the backlog for administrative law judge decisions in the public sector and get the farm laborer collective bargaining agreement operating in a fashion that it should. We’re trying through decisions to make it clear what the rules are.

We had a meeting with Farm Bureau representatives and they’ve made clear what their concerns were. One of their primary concerns was that they wanted to know what the rules are. We’re trying to make ourselves available to anybody who wants to learn about the procedures and substance of the law. In the past several months, we have had meetings with the Farm Bureau. I have meetings with the AFL-CIO. We recently sent people to speak at the American Bar Association’s labor section. And I’ll be at the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education in a couple weeks.

We’re set up like a court system, where an administrative law judge hears cases and initially hears decisions. Then it goes to the Public Employment Relations Board. And if they sued in court they go to the state Supreme Court.

The governor’s office has an agricultural one-stop task force, with different agencies involved that are advising the best ways to proceed. It’s important to get our message out there to let people know how we do things.

In January, President Donald Trump abruptly fired members of the National Labor Relations Board. What impact will that have on organized labor – and New York more broadly?

As I understand it right now, the NLRB doesn’t have a quorum to do business because they are missing two members. If the NLRB can’t operate, that will have an impact. I haven’t seen an impact yet. If there’s a vacuum and they’re not doing something, the state and labor relations field is preempted from acting in that area.

For instance, if there’s labor relations actions at a factory somewhere in the state and the issues aren’t getting resolved, we’re preempted. We can’t act. If the NLRB decides they don’t have jurisdiction, say for charter schools, we can get involved in that area. But if the NLRB isn’t acting, there could be a problem in terms of labor getting employers to comply with the collective bargaining agreement. I’m sure there’s going to be an impact on union and nonunion employees.

What impact do you see the Trump administration having on workers in general? 

It’s kind of concerning. You look at what’s happening with federal civil servants and in addition to layoffs and the kind of treatment they’re getting it must be very demoralizing. We believe public servants are helping society in a lot of different ways and the demoralization and degradation of public employees in the federal sector is discouraging.

In the private sector, there’s talk of eliminating (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and overtime and rules the Biden administration put into effect. It looks like there could be some difficult days ahead for workers. A lot of these issues are outside our jurisdiction so I’m not sure what I can do.