Americans pride themselves on their sense of fair play and equal opportunity to succeed.

Over the past 30 years, union members, particularly in the private sector, have seen their numbers and quality of life decline. Analysts say too many workers have been prevented from being able to freely choose to organize themselves into a union to deal with their employer.

As the Center for American Progress recently reported, "More than half of all workers in the United States say they would vote to join a union if they could.

"Yet, union membership in the private sector is less than 8 percent today because existing laws make forming a union a Herculean task few want to undertake."

Reality check

While business interests are using their corporate power to stop passage of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress, the reality of the weaknesses of the current system shows how workers who want a voice on the job are often silenced.

A new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that in 30 percent of union organizing drives in 2007, at least one pro-union worker was fired.

Cornell professor Kate Brofenbrener says:

• 75 percent of employers facing unionization hire consultants to run sophisticated union-busting campaigns based on mass psychology and distorting the law;
• 92 percent force employees to attend anti-union meetings; and
• 50 percent of employers threaten to shut down or move if workers form a union.

On the job, front-line supervisors can run mandatory anti-union meetings during work hours, including "one-on-one conversations" with workers.

Pro-union workers are only allowed to talk about forming a union when they are on break and in a break room.

The Center for American Progress reports that "union avoidance consultants" recommend aggressive, intimidating offensives as soon as workers begin discussing unionization.

It also reports that Jackson Lewis, one of the nation's largest anti-union law firms, tells clients: "Winning an NLRB election undoubtedly is an achievement; a greater achievement is not having one at all!"

All these factors point to the weakness of the current secret-ballot process for workers.

"The more power management holds before a union election, the greater the odds workers will be stifled," said NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi. "We need a fairer process in which workers can choose whether they want to use card check or a secret ballot election to decide on unionization."

The current system in which employers force secret ballot elections is broken, he said, "and the firing of thousands of workers is testimony to that."

The Employee Free Choice Act would give affected workers the choice to organize a union through a simple majority sign-up process, free of the legal delays and workplace intimidation that often mark the process today.

The sign-up process has worked for decades in the public sector in New York state, with both unions and government appreciating its effectiveness. Majority sign-up also works at huge private-sector employers like UPS and AT&T.

Other major provisions of the act would increase penalties for law-breaking employers, and would encourage both sides to reach a first contract quickly by adding new mediation and arbitration options.

White House support

President Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis have both said they support the passage of EFCA as an important way to rebuild the economy and strengthen the middle class.

NYSUT's two national affiliates, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, represent members' interests in Washington, and are actively advocating for passage.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said while business interests have misled the public into thinking EFCA would deny workers the option of a secret-ballot, "The truth is that under the legislation, workers could decide to have a secret ballot or a card-check, in which a union is formed with the majority of workers' signatures."

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said every year more than 20,000 workers are illegally fired or discriminated against for exercising their rights. Our nation's workers deserve better," he said.