A little background: the NLRB was established in 1935 as part of the National Labor Relations Act. The Board was empowered to "make, amend, and rescind... rules and regulations" necessary to carry out the Act and its aim of protecting the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.

It worked reasonably well for awhile. In the 1950s, more than a third of American workers held a union card. By negotiating for higher wages and better working conditions, unions transformed "bad" jobs on manufacturing assembly lines into today's "good" jobs, providing the economic mobility that enabled working people to enjoy a middle-class standard of living.

But over the decades, and especially during the Bush years, the NLRB strayed from its mission of protecting workers' rights. The Board increasingly sided with employers, turning a blind eye to employers' anti-union threats and coercion, allowing employers to enact workplace policies that inhibit employees' established rights to freedom of association, and restricting the rights to nurses, temp workers, college instructors, and other broad groups of employees to even make a choice about union representation.

Illegal anti-union tactics by employers grew more pervasive as a result. Research by Cornell University professor Kate Bronfenbrenner reveals that today more than half of employers faced with a union organizing drive illegally threaten to close down their facility if the union wins, while one in three companies illegally fire workers for union activity. Employers regularly engage in surveillance, intimidation and harassment of employees trying to unionize. The NLRB's dereliction of duty means that supporting a union at work now poses workers with a significant risk of getting fired.

Today, unions still manage to bargain for the kind of wages and benefits that once characterized the American middle class, but the decades of anti-union policy by employers abetted by the NLRB mean they represent a shrinking proportion of the American workforce, now disproportionately in the public sector. That isn't enough to sustain the middle class, and as Harold Meyerson pointed out in the Washington Post, it soon won't be enough to fight for the broad public good on issues like universal health care and financial regulation.

Revitalizing the NLRB, and returning it to its original mission is a key step toward rebuilding the American middle class. Just because the Senate has slapped us across the face doesn't mean President Obama needs to follow suit. A recess appointment for Craig Becker would begin to heal the wound.