Unnoticed in the spate of dramatic labor union events of the past week is a sudden acceleration in the "de-unionization" of America.

The 111-day-old coal strike ended in a Pyrrhic victory for the miners - another such win will price them out of the energy market once again.

The Firestone Rubber Company of Akron announced the closing of its passenger car tire operations there, throwing a thousand workers into the ranks of the unemployed.

The White Motor Company closed down its truck plant in Cleveland because of "high labor costs, obsolete plant, and a declining market."

These are not isolated incidents.

Coal mining dwindled to token production under the impact of higher costs relative to gas and oil. It became competitive only when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rescued the industry with even higher, monopoly prices.

Youngstown Sheet and Tube has begun moving its operations to an automated steel plant in Indiana employing 5,000 less workers. Goodyear cut back its Akron work force late last year by a thousand workers. Chrysler prepares to close its original factory in Detroit.

It should be noted that these companies are not going out of business. They are cutting their dependence on unskilled and semi-skilled labor. They are moving to areas that give them tax breaks. They are hiring non-union workers and resisting efforts to organize employees into monopoly unions.

There is a major restructuring of American industry under way and, so far, the traditional labor union is not a part of it.

U.S. labor unions hit their high-water mark of influence shortly after World War II when slightly more than half the private sector employees were organized. Public service unions represented only about 10 percent of workers in that sector of the labor force.

Since then, "blue collar" unions have been losing members. Membership in the AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in America, has plummeted a half million in the last two years.

Today, only one of every five workers in private companies belongs to a union, and those are in declining industries.

There has been great growth, however, in unions representing government, school and hospital employees.

AFL-CIO officials predict gloomily, in private, that within another decade union membership will be back where it started in 1930-a mere one-eighth of the work force unionized, and those in stagnant industries.

While blue-collar labor unions have declined in membership, labor leaders likewise have suffered in their ability to command respect and obedience. The coal contract negotiated by Mineworker President Arnold Miller was twice rejected by his rank and file, and now there is a movement to recall him.

A recent opinion poll conducted by the Roper Organization disclosed that union officials have fallen to the bottom of the leadership totem pole. Only 48 percent of Americans have "confidence" in the integrity of union officials, a figure that has been slipping for years. Among union members themselves, barely half of them "have confidence in the system of organized labor" according to Roper.

It is no coincidence that employment is slipping in the northeastern states where unionism grew into a powerful giant, and increasing in southern states that have adopted "right-to-work" laws.

Many Ohioans who fought for progressive right-to-work measures 20 years ago now are proclaiming bitterly, "I told you so." Unions that triumphantly maintained their lock on employers then are singing the blues today.

Forced employment was outlawed a century ago. Forced unionism is dying the slow death of starvation.

There are some, even many, who are glad to see unions grow weaker. There is no doubt that powerful unions have abused their ability to take by force what could not be justified by contribution of effort. That half of the work force employed by un-organized small businesses was robbed of their fair share of the economic pie by labor bullies.