Wisconsin is only part of the GOP war against unions

By Harold Meyerson
WashPost
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Wisconsin is just the tip of the iceberg. The Republican war on unions goes far beyond Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to end collective-bargaining rights for public employees in his state or Gov. John Kasich's effort to do the same in Ohio.

For a more comprehensive view of the Republicans' war on unions, we need to focus on what Republicans in Washington did last week. In the House, Republicans passed, as part of their continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September, a provision that slashed the funding of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by one-third.

But the truly breathtaking measure was an amendment by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to defund the NLRB - closing it down altogether - until the fiscal year ends in September. The measure failed Thursday because 60 Republicans joined every Democrat present in voting no, but three-quarters of House Republicans - 176 of them, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) - voted yes. In other words, the House leadership supported abolishing the right of American workers - in the private sector no less than the public sector - to bargain collectively.

It is, after all, the NLRB that conducts the elections through which private-sector workers choose or reject a union. It is the NLRB that polices business and labor misconduct and that has the power to rule a strike or lockout unlawful. No other agency of government has that power. Defunding the NLRB would be like defunding every election board in the country during presidential and congressional elections: People would maintain, theoretically, their right to elect their officials, but there'd be no one to print the ballots or count the votes.

(More here.)

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