NLRB Amendment Beaten By GOP, Dem Coalition

WASHINGTON - Sixty House Republicans joined with every Democrat to beat back an anti-union amendment on Thursday that would have defunded the National Labor Relations Board, a New Deal-era independent agency that arbitrates labor disputes. The sixty defections come as the Midwest GOP governors in Wisconsin and Ohio are launching direct assaults on public employee unions.

Nine high-ranking Republican members of the Education and the Workforce Committee broke with their party to support the agency, including the chairman, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.). GOP hostility toward organized labor is not a new phenomenon, but the hostility has intensified since Republicans took control of the House; the party went so far as to rename what had been called the Education and Labor Committee, replacing "labor" with "the workforce."

The amendment had been introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and was beaten back by a 250 to 176 tally.

House Republicans are piling up losses in a chamber where the majority party typically rules with an iron fist. A bipartisan coalition thwarted an effort to pass an extension of the Patriot Act and eliminated money for a weapons project that House Speaker John Boehner strongly backed.

The losses would have been avoidable had Boehner chosen to lock the House floor down and ram through the spending package without allowing amendments. But Boehner, say people close to him, is committed to keeping the floor open and allowing for a free-flowing debate, even if it costs him here and there.

In the end, he might get an open floor and win the legislative victories he wants: the House eventually passed an extension of the Patriot Act and the Senate (or Congressional dysfunction) could save the duplicate fighter-jet engine he backs. And the NLRB certainly hasn't heard the last of the GOP.

Comments

[ltague]

07:47 PM on 02/19/2011

Okay, I just felt the earth knocked off it's axis a little while reading this. 60 Repubs voted WITH Dems to help something involved with protecting unions?! It's gotta be a trick.

[jwredd]

07:57 PM on 02/19/2011

That's the difference between a speaker of the house and a good speaker of the house.....

[ltague]

09:43 PM on 02/19/2011

Sorry, what do you mean?

[AmericanMark]

09:44 PM on 02/19/2011

The NLRB is supposed to be impartial and it often protects business as well as labor organization rights.

[ltague]

09:54 PM on 02/19/2011

That explains some things. Thank you.

[BigJohnfromMN]

03:19 PM on 02/19/2011

It has become obvious that Republicans only hate Government worker unions!

First all they promise to never forget 911 and then they try to strip collective bargining rights from first responders!!!

They have no respect for the middle class and most government workers make a modest wage (except the politicians that vote themselves raises) and they HATE governmenet, so the combination of the two just overwhelms all reason (wait - did I just say republicans had reason LOL)

[Ken Maddox]

02:48 PM on 02/19/2011

Somehow from among the idiocy comes a ray of hope.

[Joemama54]

02:05 PM on 02/19/2011

If you want to a picture of the world that the present day Republican Party would have us live in, then start reading Charles Dickens.

[Joemama54]

02:02 PM on 02/19/2011

The present day Republican Party seems to be intent on two things.

1)Getting elected on the premise that Government can't do anything right.

2)Proving it after getting elected.

[Imagine 39]

01:08 PM on 02/19/2011

I'm going to try to reword this post so it doesn't blow a gasket on the over-bearing Huff Post censor machine.
Corporations are organized to fill their bottom line coffers to the brim. This is why workers had to organize to counter the effects to their quality of life.

[She who thinks]

12:45 PM on 02/19/2011

I've seen several questions about why do Republicans hate labor so much. My question is why do republicans hate Women so much?

[lolablev]

01:08 PM on 02/19/2011

Because they hate themselves - they fear, they have so much anger, they are greedy because they don't have what their neighbors might have, whatever - they just hate themselves so they have to hate everyone else.

[211rabbitears]

02:33 PM on 02/25/2011

Fanned. Truer words were never spoken.

[amaboss52]

02:14 PM on 02/19/2011

Even the repudlicon women hate women. That just boggles the mind. Not one of these moneyho's will come forward to defend anything their party is doing. That in itself tells me they along with their male counterparts hate women's rights, yet if there were no womens rights they wouldn't be electable. Just boggles the mind on their doublethink.

[Imagine 39]

12:45 PM on 02/19/2011

Huff post moderators are weaving the fabric of viewers leaving

[She who thinks]

12:44 PM on 02/19/2011

Congress will fight for the rights of Labor but not the rights of WOMEN!! What's that about? Oh yeah, taking rights from women -- how silly of me -- I forgot.

[candcje]

02:25 PM on 02/19/2011

Because, we women are second class citizens. Didn't you get that memo? The one that clearly explained that women were erroneously given rights that they neither could handle nor deserved, so the only appropriate thing to do is backtrack and revoke those rights so that the world can again move as it should....

[Imagine 39]

12:39 PM on 02/19/2011

Corporations are organized to fill their coffers/bottom line to the brim. This is why workers had to organize in the first place. To counter what functions as a money sucking hog- corporations that if un- checked even drain quality of life from people.

[ltague]

07:51 PM on 02/19/2011

Totally agree!
Faved!

[William Miles Floyd]

12:16 PM on 02/19/2011

Republicans want to kill the unions even though they are probably at their weakest since they began. They don't care they will keep stepping up their rhetoric towards unions till they are gone. After that they will strip you of you social security, the 40 hour work week, your weekend, labor laws till everyone is working at a Walmart wage.

[ljmck]

11:27 AM on 02/19/2011

Republicans believe in survival of the fittest -- and only the fittest, as defined by them. Generally, "fittest" to a Republican means someone who is wealthy or likely to become wealthy.

They don't value teachers, artists, scientists, anyone who is ill or has a disability, or anyone who is not Christian, and they look with suspicion on anyone whose skin is not white.

Most of all, Republicans hate unions, even the relatively weak unions we have today. If you belong to a union, your labor is suspect, and so are you.

[filiusj]

10:30 AM on 02/19/2011

Boehner wants to cut spending but keep an expensive jet engine that the military does not even want. Oh, that's right, GE is right here in his state. But it's ok to cut spending to social programs, planned parenthood, go after unions, the EPA, etc. This man's father was actually a democrat. He is more of a creeper of the house.

[jimmygeewhiz]

10:01 AM on 02/19/2011

Senator Boehner, I respect Nancy Pelosi, I knew who Nancy Pelosi was, Nancy Pelosi was a friend of ours. Senator, you're no Nancy Pelosi.

[StChasDem]

08:52 AM on 02/19/2011

Why do the Republican'ts hate "labor" so much. It was the labor unions that made the "middle class" strong. Only 7% of non-government "labor" is represented by unions.

Are the Republican't in bed sooo much with corporations?? What the Republican't are doing in the House is just sad.

[drwtsn]

11:13 AM on 02/19/2011

"Why do the Republican­'ts hate "labor" so much. It was the labor unions that made the "middle class" strong."

You just answered your own question.