Agency Lawyer Nominated to Serve on NLRB

President Reagan on Wednesday nominated John E. Higgins Jr. to a five-year term on the National Labor Relations Board.

Higgins, 48, a career attorney with the agency, would fill a vacancy that has existed on the five-member board since December when former NLRB Chairman Donald L. Dotson’s term expired.

The nomination is subject to Senate ratification.

And Reagan last month named James M. Stephens, an NLRB member since 1985 and a former aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), to succeed Dotson as the board’s new chairman.

Higgins and Assistant Labor Secretary Salvatore Martoche had been the two finalists under White House consideration for the vacant seat. Labor relations specialists with business trade associations had said they could live with either but generally had favored Martoche.

But the National Right to Work Committee had campaigned vigorously against Higgins, telling the White House that his appointment would only “curry favor with radical and violent union officials.”

A native of Melrose, Mass., Higgins has been an attorney with the NLRB since graduating from Boston University Law School in 1964.

Since 1976, he has been the agency’s deputy general counsel, its highest ranking career post, in charge of supervising a field staff of 2,000 in 52 regional and local offices around the country.