Organized Labor becoming only a pleasant memory?

Organized labor, one of the stalwarts of democracy, has had both its size and influence greatly eroded over the past two decades. The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) has been the primary culprit as explained in a recent article in TNR and excerpted below:

....Union membership has plummeted from 23 percent in 1979 to 12.5 percent today. Some of that drop is due to a shift from unionized manufacturing industries to nonunionized whitecollar services, but most of the decline stems from the nlrb's acquiescence to aggressive--and often illegal--employer tactics. American workers are, of course, the principal victims of labor's decline. (Union workers enjoy a 15.5 percent advantage in wages over nonunion workers with comparable skills and are 18.3 percent more likely to have health insurance.) But our democratic system as a whole is also a victim. Unions are an interest group, but one whose scope and concern allows it to speak for the public interest. And, because of its numbers and electoral influence, labor has been able to check the often narrow interests of Washington's powerful business lobbies. Without labor's clout, it's unlikely that Medicare would have been enacted in 1965 or that the minimum wage would have been raised repeatedly over the last 50 years....

There isn't a single characteristic of organized labor that is shared by the Neocon agenda, and the current Bush Admnistration will continue to support any policies that further undermine labor's influence in society.