In March 2026, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a significant blow to the National Labor Relations Board’s Cemex framework for issuing bargaining orders. Originally adopted in 2023, Cemex dramatically expanded the Board’s power by discarding more than 50 years of Supreme Court precedent. The Sixth Circuit rejected that move, ruling that the Board overstepped its authority by effectively creating new rules through case decisions rather than formal rulemaking.
Despite that rejection, the Board is pressing on. Less than a month later, the Board told the Ninth Circuit—where Cemex itself is still under review—that the Sixth Circuit got it wrong. We now know that until courts definitively shut it down, the Board intends to keep applying Cemex.