This week, the Senate will hold a hearing on the nomination of Crystal Carey, a relatively unknown management-side labor lawyer, to serve in the critically important role of general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board.

The NLRB is the primary federal agency that protects workers’ right to form and join a union, speak up about unfair working conditions and bargain collectively for a better future. The general counsel is the agency’s lead prosecutor, who sets the agency’s agenda and determines how the law will be enforced. When workers come to the NLRB because they have been fired for trying to form a union, or retaliated against for discussing their working conditions with coworkers, the general counsel decides whether to take their case, and whether their rights will be vindicated.

Carey comes from the law firm Morgan Lewis — the same firm as three past NLRB members from the first Trump administration, who all participated in a predictable effort to shift labor law in a pro-management and anti-worker direction. But times have changed since the days of the first Trump term, during much of which I served as the lone Democratic member of the board.

Carey’s appointment could be much more damaging than the usual tack toward management priorities during a Republican administration. This Trump administration has declared open season on independent executive branch agencies like the NLRB, with unlawful terminations of agency leaders and sweeping executive orders that seek to fundamentally change how these agencies operate, dramatically undermining their ability to serve the public.

At this pivotal moment in the NLRB’s........

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