National Labor Relations Board chairman John Ring indicated Tuesday he wants to move quickly to craft joint-employment standards and promised a rule-making process would begin as early as this summer.

Ring also announced the NLRB would initiate a “comprehensive internal ethics and recusal review” to ensure the agency has “appropriate policies and procedures” concerning ethical obligations and recusal requirements.

Senate Democrats last month raised concerns about whether the joint-employment rule-making was an attempt to get around an ethics flap at the agency. Central to that dispute was an internal report that found Trump-appointed board member William Emanuel should not have voted in a joint-employment case—Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors—because his former law firm, Littler Mendelson, had ties to the case that the ruling overturned.

The Trump-controlled NLRB moved quickly last year to adopt a business-friendly joint-employment standard, but got tripped up and was forced to return to the Obama-era standard that puts companies on the hook for labor violations by their contractors and franchisees.

Rule-making is rare at the NLRB. The agency more often uses their cases to set standards for companies and labor unions. In their letter to Ring, Democratic senators suggested that the NLRB's push for rule-making would evade ethical restrictions and allow the Trump-controlled board to craft business-friendly standards.

Ring said internal preparations were underway at the agency to begin the administrative rule-making process and that the agency plans to issue a notice of proposed rule-making “certainly by this summer.” The process, often long and involving thousands of comments, “will permit the board to consider and address the issues in a comprehensive manner and to provide the greatest guidance,” Ring said. Any new rule would apply prospectively, he said.

“Whatever standard the board ultimately adopts at the conclusion of the rule-making process, my hope is that the final rule will bring far greater certainty and stability to this key area of labor law, consistent with congressional intent,” said Ring, a former Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner in Washington.

Ring and Emanuel each listed dozens of former clients in their financial disclosures, submitted as part of the nomination process. During his confirmation hearing, Ring stressed he did not want the agency to be under any ethical cloud and would ensure he would make an effort to confront any ethical issues as a board member.

Ring vowed to keep an open mind during the process but acknowledged: “I will not pretend that I am devoid of opinions on the subject of the joint-employer standard.” Still, he said, pointing to past rule-making at the NLRB, “holding opinions or embarking on notice-and-comment rule-making does not disqualify an agency administrator from undertaking such rule-making.”

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