"We have survived wars. We have survived recessions. But can we survive four more years of this?" - meaning another term for President Bush - asked AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson in late 2003.

"Too horrible to think about," was how her boss, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, termed the prospect of a second term for President Bush, before the election.

Well, he's baack. GOP President George W. Bush beat Democratic challenger John F. Kerry by a 51-48 percent margin. And a few weeks after the Nov. 2 election, organized labor has had an opportunity to digest the results, giving many labor leaders and members a case of indigestion - and some calling for a quick remedy by cleaning house at the AFL-CIO.

Unions reportedly invested more than $150 million on the Democratic presidential ticket for get-out-the-vote mobilizations and voter education efforts. The money helped raise awareness and improved organizations, but ultimately failed.

The next four years are "not going to be pretty" for organized labor, said Peter Dreier, a political science professor at Occidental College, to the Los Angeles Times. He added: "The day-to-day work of trying to build the labor movement is going to be made much harder now." Among a number of issues organized labor has to watch is how two openings on the National Labor Relations Board will be filled. A more conservative board could make it even more difficult for unions to organize new members, the Times said.

In past administrations, both Republican and Democratic, the AFL-CIO president has at least been able to talk to the Chief Executive. Not this time. Sweeney said after Bush became president four years ago, "we attempted to have a relationship, after the Supreme Court declared the election. Relationship? There was no relationship."

If Kerry got into office, unions would have looked forward to re-implementing union-only federal project labor agreements (which Bush outlawed) and providing some regulatory help to ailing multi-employer pension plans (which Bush refused to do), and repealing Bush's onerous bookkeeping rules which place a heavy financial burden on unions - but not private businesses.

Also on organized labor's pre-election agenda: a more liberal policy for releasing unemployment insurance money; a higher minimum wage; overturning Bush's policy which will take away overtime from some six million workers; taking another look at re-instituting worker-friendly ergonomic rules (which Bush repealed), and taking back OSHA to its historic role as a watchdog for workers rather than a lapdog for business interests.

But Kerry lost, and with the loss went organized labor's hope to have any of its agenda considered. Labor's Democratic allies never had much of a chance of winning a majority in either the House or the Senate.

A week after the election, the house of organized labor, with less than 13 million members under the umbrella of the AFL-CIO, started talking about how to get its house in order at a meeting of the federation's Executive Council.

"The labor movement was really shaken by the election and they're also badly divided," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a labor relations professor at Cornell University, to the New York Times.

Changes - perhaps major changes - are forthcoming, but they won't be addressed until the council meets again early next year. The most notable recent news came from the AFL-CIO's largest affiliate, the Service Employees International Union.

"When only 13 percent of the American work force is in unions, our ability to win national elections is limited," said SEIU President Andrew Stern, in a letter distributed before the meeting.

Stern circulated a 10-point program calling for a massive overhaul of the AFL-CIO - and warned that his union might break away from the federation if changes aren't implemented.

His plan includes $2 billion for organizing - double the current amount, a $25 million campaign to unionize Wal-Mart, a campaign for universal health care (details unspecified) and greater top-down direction, including mergers. There are currently 60 AFL-CIO unions - including 14 in the building trades - and Stern called for greater consolidation of unions.

To throw fuel on the fire, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's four-year term is up in July.

Stern ally John Wilhelm of the union that represents hotel workers, a possible rival of Sweeney's, said last week: "We have to do things much differently in the labor movement because of all the challenges that we face. Organized labor right now is obviously in trouble because we continue to decline as a percent of the work force."