Trump names two Michiganians to labor panel

President Donald Trump has appointed two Michiganians to a low-profile federal labor panel that resolves impasses between government agencies and unions representing federal employees.

Trump selected retired Delta Air Lines’ lobbyist Andrea Fischer Newman to serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring Jan. 10, 2022, on the Federal Service Impasses Panel. Fischer Newman is a regent at the University of Michigan.

The seven-member panel is charged with resolving a labor dispute when bargaining stalls between a federal agency and a union representing federal workers after mediation. The panel can decide to impose contract terms on unionized employees if any dispute resolution procedures it suggests don’t produce a voluntary agreement.

This will be Fischer Newman’s second time on the federal labor panel. She previously served on it as an appointee of President George W. Bush.

Trump also choose F. Vincent Vernuccio, a senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, to serve the remainder of a five-year panel term expiring Jan. 10, 2019. He is a right-to-work advocate who was the Mackinac Center’s director of labor policy until the past month.

Vernuccio previously was a special assistant to the assistant secretary for administration and management in the U.S. Department of Labor under Bush.