"Republicans have accomplished what Democrats and unions never could," Josh Eidelson writes. "[T]hey’ve made the National Labor Relations Board a household name." That's because under President Obama, the NLRB has taken steps to protect workers and slightly reduce the degree to which the system favors business over workers. Eidelson details three big tasks the labor board can and should take on in 2012: expediting the process by which it handles complaints such as workers fired illegally for exercising their legal rights, pass more rule changes expediting union representation elections and expand the categories of workers eligible to join unions.