As we’ve written repeatedly, running a union campaign is a perilous exercise in the U.S. Because the costs of violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) are so low, companies can intimidate or fire union organizers and sympathetic employees without facing significant penalties. In fact, American Rights at Work (ARW) estimates (PDF) that more than 23,000 workers are fired or penalized for union activity every year.

When explaining their opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), business interests like to assert that the “secret ballot” used in NLRB union elections is emblematic of democratic principles and therefore must be protected. But this argument overlooks the degree of employer interference in union elections. ARW research is pretty illuminating here as well.  Meanwhile, this great diagram (via Tim Fernholz) lays out why the “secret ballot” argument is so ridiculous:

Of course, contrary to conservative myth, the EFCA would preserve both options for unionizing -- secret ballot and card check (in which a union is formed when a majority of workers sign cards certifying their desire to organize). The difference is that workers themselves would get to choose which is used. So if an employer is harassing his or her workforce, employees can ditch the election and decide whether or not to unionize on their own terms.

Incidentally, union leaders from 45 different countries met with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and representatives of U.S. union organizations to discuss the union movement in the United States and the need to work together to pass EFCA yesterday. Illinois' own Rep. Phil Hare was tasked with explaining the brewing fight in Congress over EFCA to his international brothers and sisters. Here’s what he said:

“This is an easy choice if you believe the simple rights of ordinary people to be paramount. This bill is about fairness. Who wins? Not just the people who are organized, but the people who aren’t.”

Hare noted that sick leave, health insurance, pensions and overtime—valued by everyone in the workforce—didn’t come about on their own but were the result of bargaining by workers. The Employee Free Choice Act, he said, would reverse the tide of inequality and give working people more power in the workplace and in national politics.