A positive sentiment with an alternative interpretation reflected perfectly by union-defender Harold Meyerson here and here:

1) "The one great period of broadly shared prosperity in U.S. history remains the three decades following World War II, which, anything but coincidentally, is the one period in which America had high levels of unionization."

2) "By the early 1950s, the UAW had secured a number of contractual innovations -- annual cost-of-living adjustments, for instance -- that set a pattern for the rest of American industry and created the broadly shared prosperity enjoyed by the nation in the 30 years after World War II."

We need to reverse our current economic trends sure, but living in the past and trying to turn America 2009 around into America 1959 isn't the way to do it, because we are currently not living in the three decades following WWII, a period in which, as WaPo commenter caribis wrote:

The working age population of Europe was again decimated by deaths, but unlike with the plague, all the houses and factories and roads and ships and railroads needed to be rebuilt too. Demand for labor was high so everyone who was alive and able bodied prospered. Because of our low casualties and undamaged industrial base, the US particularly benefited. We also benefited from new technologies that increased productivity. Unionization was high because of an accident of history: the Great Depression and New Deal policies that benefited unions. The unions probably helped workers, but workers were going to benefit no matter what. The unions did not cause the prosperity, they were simply there when prosperity hit. The most important lesson anyone can learn from statistics is this: Correlation is not causation!!

It is a different world and if unions wish to compete they need to modernize and get in the game. First they can start spending more of their money on organizing, an expenditure which has fallen dramatically since the Fifties. Hmmm, we are spending less on selling, and sales are down?  That’s causation Mr. Meyerson.

Then they can work on providing workers with the skills they need for tomorrow's jobs, not trying to "protect" them from technology, 'cause someone is going to use the technology, and they will gain an advantage. They need to gain subscriptions to their cause -- not conscription through card-check.

And while we are on card check, my favorite part of Meyerson's two columns is the invocation of César Chávez. Chávez of course was a supporter of secret ballot elections, primarily to guard against intimidation by other unions he feel didn't adequately represent farm workers. In other words to allow for honest competition.