Former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Kent Hirozawa has rejoined Gladstein, Reif & Meginniss LLP as a partner, the firm announced Tuesday.
A longtime labor lawyer, Hirozawa returns to the firm after his term at the NLRB expired in 2016. He originally spent over two decades at Gladstein Reif prior to his appointment to the board by President Barack Obama in 2013. He also previously served as chief counsel to former NLRB Chair Mark Gaston Pearce.
In his time on the NLRB, Hirozawa played a key role in several landmark pro-labor decisions, including:
- The 2015 Browning-Ferris decision, which expanded the NLRB’s definition of joint employers.
- The 2016 Columbia University ruling, which allowed graduate teaching and research assistants to unionize.
- A 2014 rule change streamlining union elections, dubbed by critics as the “ambush election” rule.
Since leaving the board, Hirozawa has been active in academia, serving as a visiting scholar at NYU School of Law and teaching labor law at CUNY School of Law.
Coverage by Law360 can be found.