Let’s say you want to walk on a tightrope across the Grand Canyon without a tether or a net—in whose hands would you put your life? If you are Nik Wallenda, a Guinness Book of World Records-holder seven times over for acrobatic feats—including walking across Niagara Falls on a similar tightrope—you turn to union members.

As we've covered before, Reconnecting McDowell is a broad community effort including unions, corporations, community groups and local residents to help revitalize struggling McDowell County in West Virginia. The effort has led to many successes and life in McDowell is already improving. The latest success was a fundraising drive led by United Steelworkers (USW) members Karen Shipley and Heather Anderson that raised $5,000 to send kids to a 4-H camp.

In an extreme, out-of-touch vote, House Republicans voted on a Farm Bill Thursday that removed nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Every Democrat and a dozen Republicans voted against the bill.  

Here are ten examples—real stories from workers whose jobs and lives are negatively impacted by Republican obstruction—of why we need a functioning NLRB (see the stories after the jump).

While many of today's prominent Republican elected officials point to former President Ronald Reagan as their patron saint, they've moved so far to the right that their positions are way out of line with what Reagan actually did as president. For instance, this year Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said the National Labor Relations Board was the most "out-of-control agency in Washington" because it made rulings that favored workers. Previously he said, "Given its recent actions, the NLRB as inoperable could be considered progress."

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka appeared together Wednesday at a Center for American Progress event to call on the U.S. Senate to move forward on confirming President Obama's nominations to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If those confirmations fail to be approved, the board would fall below a quorum on Aug. 1 and no longer would be able to do its job of protecting America's workers.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts were among 30 arrested at a rally in West Virginia Tuesday while protesting Patriot Coal's attempts to abandon its commitments to retirees, most of whom worked for Peabody Energy and Arch Coal before those companies created Patriot. Roberts and others say Patriot specifically was created to fail so the original companies could eliminate retiree health care and pension costs.

Working families in North Carolina will continue their series of "Moral Monday" rallies today at the Halifax Mall in Raleigh to protest the extreme actions of the legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory (R). Thousands have attended the previous rallies.

Longtime labor leader Clyde Fitzgerald, president of the South Atlantic & Gulf Coast District of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), has been appointed to serve on the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority.  Fitzgerald has worked on the Houston waterfront for 50 years and has been president of ILA Local 28 for two decades.  He is also a vice president in the International ILA.

On Saturday, July 6, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed while landing in San Francisco, leading to two deaths and more than 100 injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into the cause of the tragedy.