MADISON, Wisconsin — Republican attempts to disband public workers unions in Wisconsin and other key states are part of a broad strategy to undermine US President Barak Obama and his Democrats at the ballot box, analysts said.
Unions have been the biggest sources of financial and grass roots, get-out-the-vote organizational support for Democrats and have long been a target of business-backed Republicans.
But they've seen their power and membership rolls shrink as the manufacturing sector declined and shifted to anti-union southern states, and now represent just 12 percent of US workers.
Public workers account for more than half of union rolls, even though a dozen states prohibit state and local government workers from forming unions.
And now Republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa are looking to curtail or even eliminate collective bargaining rights for state and local government employees.
The move to bust public unions is part of a broader attempt "to bring us closer to a more permanent Republican majority," said Marjorie Hershey, a political science professor at Indiana University.
Republicans won a major victory last year when the Supreme Court overturned a ban on corporate spending in elections.................
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