Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
This week, Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander
introduced a bill that would add a sixth member to the National Labor Relations Board, so that instead of having three members of the president's party and two members of the other major party, it would have six members. Like the Federal Election Commission, they pointed out. Ian Millhiser
puts that in context:
The Federal Election Commission is one of the most ineffective institutions within the federal government, largely because it is a six member agency with each party controlling three seats. Thus, the FEC’s Democrats can block any action that may aid Republicans, and its GOP members can do the same for actions that could benefit Democrats. As Trevor Potter, a former Republican member of the FEC explains, in recent years “most important votes at the FEC have resulted in partisan 3-to-3 ties, leaving the commission essentially unable to act.”
If the NLRB became similarly gridlocked, it’s likely that management would benefit at the expense of labor. [...] Indeed, without a fully functioning NLRB, the Board would not be able to enforce an employer’s legal obligation to bargain with its employees’ union, nor would it be able to stop an employer from firing pro-union workers or from spying on union gatherings.
For Republicans, of course, gridlock is a feature, not a bug, when it comes to labor law enforcement. Especially when the president is a Democrat.