Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES—Top labor and employment developments for April 2026, (May 5, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

In case you missed the in-depth coverage of Labor & Employment Law Daily during April, here’s a recap of some key developments in the L&E community. Highlights include:

• At the Supreme Court: On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, found that state-law tort claims were preempted in a case in which the federal government neither ordered nor authorized the challenged conduct of a military contractor that employed an individual who ultimately carried out a suicide-bomb attack at a U.S. base in Afghanistan. Earlier in the month, the Court heard oral argument in a challenge to Trump’s birthright citizenship Executive Order.

• Federal courts of appeals: The D.C. Circuit held that the NLRB erred in finding that Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC unlawfully fired a technician, who was a union spokesperson during contemporaneous bargaining, for “providing misleading or fraudulent information to public officials” about its electrical utility meters at a state legislative committee hearing. In another case, the Fourth Circuit, in a divided en banc decision, vacated a preliminary injunction that had restrained the Social Security Administration from granting DOGE or its affiliates access to Americans’ sensitive personal information, finding that the plaintiffs, two unions and a grass roots advocacy organization, failed to show they were likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief.

• Agency news: On April 24, the Trump administration dismissed all members of the National Science Board, the statutorily created body that governs and advises the U.S. National Science Foundation, abruptly ending the terms of sitting board members without publicly stated reasons. In a final rule published April 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce amended its regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, eliminating provisions concerning disparate impact liability and affirmative action.

• Also of note: A federal district court in Rhode Island found that the Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were not entitled to dismissal of claims brought by 19 states and the District of Columbia alleging that their decision to restructure HHS—including significant federal worker layoffs—violates the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, runs afoul of the Appropriations Clause, constitutes an unlawful exercise of executive power, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

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