William Emanuel, one of Trump’s NLRB appointees, is a man­age­ment-side attor­ney and a mem­ber of the con­ser­v­a­tive Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety. He is also a share­hold­er of Lit­tler Mendel­son, an infa­mous union bust­ing firm that was most recent­ly brought in by Long Island beer dis­trib­u­tor Clare Rose to nego­ti­ate a con­tract full of pay cuts .

On July 13, the Sen­ate Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor and Pen­sions (HELP) Com­mit­tee held hear­ings on Trump’s two NLRB selec­tions and his deputy labor sec­re­tary pick. All three of these men are expect­ed to be confirmed.

It might not get as much press cov­er­age as oth­er Don­ald Trump admin­is­tra­tion calami­ties, but the U.S. pres­i­dent is set to appoint a known union buster to the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB), push the body to a Repub­li­can major­i­ty and reverse Oba­ma-era pro­tec­tions that ran­kle Big Business.

After being select­ed, Emanuel dis­closed 49 for­mer clients and declared he would recuse him­self for up to a year if any of the com­pa­nies found them­selves in front of the NLRB. The list includ­ed mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es that have clashed with the labor board, includ­ing JPMor­gan Chase Bank, Mas­Tec Inc, Nis­san and Uber.

Uber’s ongo­ing skir­mish­es with the NLRB have, per­haps, been the most pub­li­cized. At the end of 2016, the ride-share com­pa­ny bat­tled with the NLRB after the agency sent out sub­poe­nas aimed at glean­ing infor­ma­tion about whether Uber dri­vers were statu­to­ry employees.

In 2016, Emanuel authored an ami­cus brief that defend­ed class-action waivers in employ­ment con­tracts. Work­ers often depend on class actions to fight sex­u­al and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and their exis­tence is an impor­tant part of uphold­ing wage laws. The NLRB ruled that such waivers were ille­gal under Obama.

Emanuel was asked about Lit­tler Mendelson’s anti-union work by Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren. ​“You have spent your career at one of the country’s most ruth­less, union-bust­ing law firms in the coun­try,” she said. ​“How can Amer­i­cans trust you will pro­tect work­ers’ rights when you’ve spent 40 years fight­ing against them?”

In response, Emanuel claimed that he would be objec­tive when­ev­er mak­ing deci­sions for the agency.

Emanuel is not the only appointee rais­ing con­cern among work­ers’ rights advo­cates. Mar­vin Kaplan, anoth­er Trump nom­i­nee to the NLRB, is a pub­lic-sec­tor attor­ney and cur­rent coun­sel to the com­mis­sion­er for the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Review Com­mis­sion. The Kaplan pick excites busi­ness exec­u­tives and their advo­cates, who envi­sioned him help­ing over­turn Oba­ma-era labor regulations.

At the time of the announce­ment, Kris­ten Swearin­gen, chair of the anti-union group Coali­tion for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Work­place, declared that ​“Mar­vin Kaplan will begin to restore bal­ance to an agency whose recent and rad­i­cal deci­sions and dis­re­gard for long stand­ing prece­dent have inject­ed uncer­tain­ty into labor rela­tions to the detri­ment of employ­ees, employ­ers and the economy.”

The excite­ment is well-found­ed. Kaplan served as coun­sel for Repub­li­cans on the House Com­mit­tee on Edu­ca­tion and the Work­force. The New York Times reports, ​“The com­mit­tee held hear­ings dur­ing his tenure scru­ti­niz­ing promi­nent NLRB actions in which the wit­ness­es skewed toward busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives and oth­er skep­tics.” Kaplan also helped devel­op the The Work­force Democ­ra­cy and Fair­ness Act, leg­is­la­tion that would kill a labor board rule that short­ened the amount of time between when the board autho­rizes a work­place union­iza­tion vote and when the vote actu­al­ly takes place. Since 2014, the num­ber has been set at 11 days. But this act would increase it to at least 35, thus allow­ing more time for union efforts to be squashed. The leg­is­la­tion hasn’t passed in con­gress yet.

Con­cerns do not stop at the NLRB. Trump’s Labor Depart­ment nom­i­nee is Patrick Pizzel­la, a Fed­er­al Labor Rela­tions Author­i­ty Mem­ber who was grilled by Min­neso­ta Sen­a­tor Al Franken on his ties to the infa­mous lob­by­ist Jack Abramoff. Pizzel­la worked with Abramoff dur­ing the 1990s to exempt the North­ern Mar­i­ana Islands from fed­er­al labor regulations.

The Sen­ate has only been in ses­sion for 10 days since the Pizzel­la and Kaplan nom­i­na­tions, and only four days since Emanuel’s. A group of civ­il rights and labor orga­ni­za­tions sent the com­mit­tee a let­ter ask­ing for the hear­ings to be post­poned. Dur­ing her open­ing remarks, Sen. Pat­ty Mur­ray called Trump’s attempt to jam through the nom­i­nees with­out prop­er over­sight ​“unprece­dent­ed.”

Rough­ly 10 work­ers rep­re­sent­ing the pro-labor orga­ni­za­tion Good Jobs Nation stood up dur­ing Thursday’s hear­ing, put blue tape over their mouths and walked out of the room in silent protest. Groups like Good Jobs Nation are con­cerned about a pro-busi­ness major­i­ty in the agency amidst Trump’s pro­posed cuts to the Labor Department.

Trump is putting the NLRB in the posi­tion to undo a num­ber of impor­tant Oba­ma-era labor deci­sions. His NLRB could poten­tial­ly reverse rul­ings that made it eas­i­er for small groups of work­ers to union­ize, estab­lished grad stu­dents as employ­ees, put char­ter school employ­ees under NLRB juris­dic­tion, and held par­ent com­pa­nies joint­ly liable for with fran­chise oper­a­tors who break labor laws. Writ­ing about the immi­nent anti-union crack­down on this web­site in May, Shaun Rich­man wrote, ​“Unions and their allies should be con­ven­ing research teams to plot out a cam­paign of reg­u­la­to­ry and judi­cial activism. That work should begin now.”

Ear­ly in the hear­ing, Wash­ing­ton Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray asked Emanuel if he had ever rep­re­sent­ed a union or a work­er. Emanuel explained that he worked exclu­sive­ly for man­age­ment for his entire career. ​“You just don’t do both,” he told her. ​“It’s not feasible.”