Unions Beat GOP Candidates as New Hampshire Blocks Anti-Labor Law

A new article from John Nichols in the Nation:

Mitt Romney can attack public-employee unions all he wants. Rick Perry can attack collective-bargaining rights. Newt Gingrich can call for eliminating child labor laws so that school janitors can be replaced with adolescents.

But those are not winning positions in mainstream America, where polling suggests Americans recognize the value of labor unions and of laws that maintain the right to organize and bargain for better wages, better benefits and better services for children and communities.

And they are not winning positions in New Hampshire, the first-primary state where the Republicans who would be president are waging a fierce battle to out-conservative one another.

On Wednesday, after months of wrangling over the issue, the New Hampshire House of Representatives killed a plan promoted by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to make New Hampshire a so-called “right-to-work” state. The law was blocked because not just Democrats but almost two dozen Republicans rejected the counsel of presidential candidate Perry -- who addressed the legislature Wednesday morning -- and voted with organized labor and community groups that rallied to defend collective-bargaining rights.

Click here to read the whole article.