Labor unions have been in better spirits this past year, helping return the Democrats to power in both the House and Senate and leading the charge on a rash of legislation.

With President Bush’s approval ratings in the doldrums, there is a sense from many unions that a pro-labor White House is only a year away.

Even with this optimism, however, the central problem plaguing unions has not subsided — the decline of union membership.

The Department of Labor reported this year that less than 7.5 percent of the private sector work force belongs to a union.

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Struggling to make unions more attractive to today’s work force, labor has tried changing the rules of the game. Last spring, the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act, which would eliminate workplace secret-ballot elections on unionization and instead allow new organizing methods that would make it much easier to mislead or intimidate employees into joining a union.

That bill died in the Senate, facing a filibuster and threatened presidential veto.

Now, some unions are proposing another change. In August, seven unions petitioned the National Labor Relations Board asking for new rules that would permit unions to demand collective bargaining on behalf of a minority of employees in a workplace.

Under the NLRB’s existing interpretation, for a union to have standing as a bargaining representative, a majority of the employees must first agree to be represented by the union.

Secret ballots have traditionally been used to discern if majority status exists.

Where majority support has been verified, unions are obligated to represent all employees. The potential changes would also permit a union to provide services only to dues-paying members.

A reinterpretation along the lines of what these labor unions have proposed would be a radical reordering of the way unions recruit new members and could easily lead to a multitude of different unions in a particular workplace.

Collective bargaining rules would mandate the employer to bargain on demand with each union individually and notify them of proposed changes in terms and conditions of employment.

The practical consequences of dealing with many unions could quickly become a nightmare for any employer, with a confusing array of pay scales and workforce rules applying to employees even in the same job classification and building.

Labor’s supporters see the inevitable employer burdens as advantageous and the new membership pools as a solution to their broader dilemma.

Professor Charles Morris, whose book “The Blue Eagle At Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights In The American Workplace” provides the blueprint for this proposal, has stated that employers “will usually be more anxious to resolve [issues] without delay.”

There is little chance that the current NLRB will agree with this novel theory. But the composition of the NLRB is determined by the president.

All of the Democratic presidential candidates have pledged to sign the Employee Free Choice Act.

It’s conceivable that supporting minority unions could become a litmus test for Democratic appointees to the NLRB. Finding NLRB candidates to meet this bar will not be difficult, as several prominent labor law professors openly support the proposed change.

Happy days will not truly return to the organized labor movement until their membership numbers increase.

“Members-only, Minority-union collective bargaining” carries the real possibility of helping labor achieve this goal, even if it cannot help elect a filibuster-proof Senate.

As a result, unions will have all eyes on the White House in the coming year.

Richard Hankins is head of the Labor & Employment Law team of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP and editor of EFCAUpdates.com. Bryan O’Keefe is a labor policy analyst in Washington.