Meanwhile…

The Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voted along party lines “to slash long-time federal labor laws protecting workers’ freedom to form unions and opened the door for employers to classify millions of workers as supervisors. Under federal labor law, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions… [T]he expanded definition of supervisors means up to 8 million workers, including nurses, building trades workers, newspaper and television employees and others may be barred from joining unions.”

How big a deal is this? Big.

Preventing the ability to organize leaves workers vulnerable to a variety of injustices. Not being able to collectively argue contracts will make the nursing shortage in America even more dire, which will certainly be bad for our healthcare system and thus for us all. Not being able to organize against coercive management tactics will undoubtedly affect newspaper and television employees, as our media moves increasingly rightward, and that, too, will certainly be bad for us all. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

More from David Goldstein and Matt Stoller. And now I’ll turn it over to Colbert for a little perspective.