^Y'know. The unions might have died a natural death if the Republicans hadn't declared war on them.^
There is no evidence of that. The main issue here is public taxpayer-funded unions, something FDR and George Meany both spoke out against, and didn't really exist as such until 1959.
Note that these are percentages of the public and private work forces respectively, not absolute numbers or percentages of the total work force. The government employment level in 1979 was about 16 million. 35 percent of that is 5.6 million. The government employment level in 2010 was about 22.5 million. 35 percent of that is 7.9 million. Not dying out as far as I can see.
And for the record, the unions declared war on the Republicans many years ago.
Current Events » in reply to Oberman's Cornell Speech
Re: Unions dying a natural death