Just keep voting until you get the desired results and we will change the rules along the way to help advance policy changes that could not pass through Congress.

This is the message the National Mediation Board (NMB) has transmitted on behalf of Team Obama to union bosses who lost ground in the private sector. Only 11.9 percent of all wage and salary workers, public and private, are union members, and the percentage of union members in the private sector is a mere 6.9 percent. Unions lost over 612,000 members in 2010, most of them in private sector unions.

Although they helped to elect a Democratic president and Democratic Congress in 2008, organized labor failed to secure its top legislative priorities. This would include replacing the secret ballot in unionization elections with a card check system and binding arbitration that would allow federal mediators to impose guidelines on business. The strategy now is to reshape public policy through unelected agencies that typically elude media scrutiny.

In 2009, the NMB radically reworked a long-standing workplace rule at the behest of the AFL-CIO that governed the way airline and railroad workers unionized. Prior to making the change, a majority of a company’s workforce was necessary to vote in favor of representation. But now that the rule has been modified only a majority of votes received as opposed to the majority of entire workforce is sufficient to force unionization on an entire company. This reverses 75 years of labor policy upheld under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Moreover, there is no realistic or attainable option for decertification meaning employees are permanently stuck with a union even if they no longer want it.

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In their first year in office, the Obama Administration has re-made the U.S. Department of Labor into the Department of Organized Labor, working hard to make certain that those who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to put them in office get a return on their investment.  While many dismiss the importance of the Department of Labor, virtually every person in America is directly touched by the rules and regulations that this federal bureaucracy creates and enforces, so changes at the top have real consequences for every working American.

As we evaluate the impact of the past year on the nation’s workforce, it is worthwhile to remember the accomplishments of President Bush’s Secretary of Labor, Elaine L. Chao.

When Secretary Chao left office, workers were safer in their workplaces than at any time in history, the Labor Department was focused upon encouraging private sector job creation, and created an enforcement environment that successfully protected workers from employers who egregiously violated the law while providing the necessary education to limit inadvertent violations.

Secretary Chao put an emphasis on clarifying workplace regulations to make it easier for employers to know the rules of the game.  Her efforts led to overtime requirements being more clear-cut for employers while explicitly guaranteeing overtime protections for blue collar workers, police and fire fighters, EMTs, construction workers and others.

The Labor Department under Secretary Chao brought transparency to the spending of Big Labor through regulations which for the first time shined a light upon labor union expenditures.  These reports revealed the massive labor expenditures supporting ACORN’s efforts,and were used by LA Times reporter Paul Pringle in his Polk Award winning series that brought down the SEIU powerbrokers in the California SEIU.

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