Former NLRB attorney Marni von Wilpert runs for Congress to reform labor law

Legislation that would modernize federal labor law began with a handful of lawyers meeting, of all places, in an ice-cream shop.

“We wrote for hours what we would do to amend the National Labor Relations Act,” said Marni von Wilpert, a member of the San Diego city council who was then an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Bringing together “our collective experience as labor lawyers over the years, really trying to unrig the rules so that working people could have a fair shot”.

Though that meeting in Washington DC took place over a decade ago, the plan to reform labor law that came from it still has not passed Congress.

Von Wilpert is vying to see the job through. In the fall, she launched her bid to replace Darrell Issa, a longtime Republican US representative who represents a district in San Diego. After a bitter primary against a fellow Democrat, Wilpert is now part of the party’s effort to win back the US House through a focus on affordability and empowering workers.

“One of my biggest priorities for running for Congress myself is to finish this work, to come back as a member of Congress and finally get labor law reform across the finish line,” Von Wilpert said.

After beginning her legal career as a legal fellow at the Mississippi Center for Justice then as a federal law clerk, Von Wilpert joined the NLRB as an attorney in 2014, serving until 2017. During that time, she saw how the rules were rigged against workers fighting labor violations, who often faced long delays and backlogs.

“A worker would either be fired for organizing or an election would be overturned, and it would take three to four years to get to me in Washington DC,” she said. “I saw how hard it was for working people to try and navigate our current labor law system.”

The legislation would update labor laws, including the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, and strengthen protection for organizing workers, including allowing the NLRB to assess monetary penalties for labor violation and impose liability on corporate executives.

Von Wilpert worked with Bobby Scott, a Democratic congressman, and Patty Murray, a senator, to draft the legislation that would eventually become the Protecting the Right to Organize (Pro) act. Though the bill has been introduced in Congress annually since 2019 and passed the House in 2021, it has long been stalled in the Senate.

When Von Wilpert first ran for her seat on the city council, she ended up flipping one of the most conservative districts in the city. In November, she will face Jim Desmond, a Trump-endorsed San Diego county supervisor, in a newly redrawn district that now slightly leans in favor of Democrats, though polls show a clean split between Desmond and von Wilpert.

Von Wilpert has been trying to emphasize her labor background to appeal to voters, noting that Desmond is aligned with the Trump administration that has set back workers’ rights by, among other things, decreasing workplace safety standards and firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers, including at the NLRB.

As a county supervisor, Desmond has opposed pro-labor policies, including minimum wage increases for contracted county workers, a contract for county janitorial workers who made several allegations of abuse on the job and the creation of a country office for labor standards, Von Wilpert said.

“There is a big difference in this race about which candidate is going to stand up for workers and who is not,” von Wilpert said.

“I am running to actually stand up for workers, level the playing field again and really unrig the economy for working people, not just the wealthy few,” she said. “This is what government, to me, should be about.”