The epic stand-off between labor unions and Wisconsin’s Republican governor has dominated headlines over the last week, and it reflects the growing rancor between conservative groups and labor groups.<\/p>\n
The effort to strip public sector workers of their collective bargaining powers in that state is part of a national effort by the GOP to declaw Big Labor and roll back many of the laws that have empowered union organizers.<\/p>\n
On Thursday of last week, House Republicans in Washington pushed an amendment that would have taken that battle up a notch,\u00a0 actually trying to defund the National Labor Relations Board<\/a>.<\/p>\n The NLRB is the Federal agency that serves as the arbiter and referee in disputes between unions and employers.\u00a0 It is the chief mechanism in our government that insures safe, fair union ballots.<\/p>\n It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the agency was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.<\/p>\n That New Deal-era policy has been a fixture in American labor law for as long as most of us have been alive.<\/p>\n Still, two thirds of Republican lawmakers — 176 lawmakers — voted to zero out all funding for the NLRB.<\/p>\n The measure would have passed the House if not for the fact that sixty Republicans crossed over and voted against the amendment.<\/p>\n Those lawmakers joined with with every single Democrat in the House and voted contrary to Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.<\/p>\n