ELECTION ‘94: IMPACT ON BUSINESS : Republican Victories Spell More Frustration for Labor : Legislation: Having fared not so well under the Clinton Administration, union backers may find the future even worse.

Even before Republicans notched their smashing congressional election victories this week, organized labor’s agenda wasn’t getting far under the Clinton Administration. But now, experts say, things will get even worse for union backers.

With newly won majorities in both the House and Senate, Republicans might be able to restrain workplace regulatory agencies that have become more aggressive under a Democratic President. Emboldened business groups may also push for legislation relaxing rules on labor-management committees, overtime pay and other wage issues.

And labor law reform, once a cornerstone of President Clinton’s domestic agenda, looks dead. Unions had hoped that the Dunlop Commission, a Presidential panel named to recommend legislative reforms, would propose changes to help unions bring in new members.

Now, however, “any opportunity for reform has passed us by,” said James M. Wood, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

The commission’s final report will “be a nice book you can put on your shelf, but that’s all it’ll be,” said Matthew Tallmer, a Washington-based editor of newsletters covering labor issues.

Tougher to divine is what will happen at the National Labor Relations Board, the regulatory agency that rules on disputes between unions and employers. Under Chairman William B. Gould IV, a former Stanford law professor confirmed this year after a nine-month struggle, the board was expected to take a more pro-union slant.

But next month brings to an end the term of NLRB member Dennis M. Devaney, a Democrat and Reagan Administration appointee who currently is the swing vote between the pro-union and pro-management sides at the agency.

If Republicans block the appointment of a pro-union replacement for Devaney, it would be another major blow to unionists who hoped the five-member board would reverse what they considered its strongly pro-business stance during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Among the areas where the labor movement has scored gains under Clinton have been at the U.S. Department of Labor’s wage and hour division and its Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In Southern California and other apparel manufacturing centers, labor officials have cracked down on sweatshops violating minimum wage and overtime pay rules. Regulators also have extracted big fines against employers found to be violating safety requirements.

While the President and cabinet secretaries normally have broad discretion in running federal agencies, a combative Congress could hamstring their activities by cutting off, or threatening to cut off, appropriations.

OSHA, in particular, could be pressured to moderate its long-awaited ergonomics standard to protect workers against repetitive-motion injuries.

In its regulatory strategy, the Clinton Administration could do one of two things, said Jeffrey McGuiness, president of the Labor Policy Assn., a group representing big companies. “They could step up regulatory enforcement and please their constituencies or they could cool it for a while in hopes that would help get Clinton reelected in two years,” he said.

He added that Democrats in Congress “kicked around the agencies” during the Bush Administration. Republicans, McGuiness said, could do the same now to the Clinton Administration.

In the legislative arena, labor has taken a drubbing even with a Democrat in the White House. The union movement’s most coveted legislation--a bill barring employers from permanently replacing strikers--was thwarted by Senate Republicans this year when the GOP still was the minority party.

California’s labor leaders know what it’s like to lose too. For the last 12 years, Wood said, one labor-backed bill after another has died on Republican governors’ desks.

Now that Republicans have won at least 40 of the 80 seats in the Assembly, labor-backed bills might get shot down even before reaching the governor’s office.

Still, Wood said, if a bill is going down to defeat anyway, “it doesn’t matter where your legislation dies, or how it dies.”