Questions & Answers

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Employee Free Choice Act Questions and Answers

America’s working people are struggling to make ends meet. These are tough economic times—crumbling financial markets, home foreclosures, unaffordable health care and shattered retirement security. Wages for working men and women have stagnated while pay and bonuses for CEOs have skyrocketed. CEOs have all the power and our middle class is disappearing. The best opportunity for working men and women to get ahead is by uniting with co-workers to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits. The Employee Free Choice Act will restore balance to our labor law and help the economy work for everyone again.

But the current labor law system is broken. Corporations routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and fire people who try to organize unions—and today’s labor law is powerless to stop them. Every day, corporations deny working people the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union:

1. Employees are fired in 34 percent of private-sector union organizing campaigns.

2. 77 percent of companies subject their workers to repeated, coercive, one-on-one, antiunion messages delivered by their supervisors—the same supervisors who control the workers’ jobs and pay.

3. And even after workers successfully form a union, one-third of the time they are not able to get a contract.

4. Remedies for these labor law violations are outdated, trivial and ineffective.

What does the Employee Free Choice Act do?

The Employee Free Choice Act helps workers who want a union, so they can bargain collectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions in these three ways::

1. Removes current barriers that prevent workers from forming unions to bargain.
2. Guarantees workers a contract when they form a new union.
3. Strengthens penalties against companies that break the law during organizing campaigns and first-contract negotiations.

What’s wrong with the current law?

Workers deserve a path to unionization that is fair, quick, and not dominated by corporations. The National Labor Relations Act states: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations….” It was designed to protect employee choice on whether to form unions, but it has been turned upside down.

The current system is not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. Companies have turned the NLRB election process into management-controlled balloting—the company has all the power, controls what information workers can receive and routinely poisons the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and firing people who try to organize unions. The NLRA process no longer protects a fair and free choice. Workers do not have an uncoerced choice after being browbeaten by supervisor to oppose the union or being told that they may lose their jobs and livelihoods if they vote for the union.

What is majority sign-up, and how does it work?

When a majority of employees a majority of workers signs cards authorizing the union to represent them and and those authorization cards are validated by the federal government, the employer will be legally required to recognize and bargain with the workers’ union.

The Employee Free Choice Act does not create the majority sign-up process. It has always been lawful. In fact, for years, responsible employers, such as AT&T, Harley-Davidson and Kaiser Permanente, have voluntarily honored their employees’ right to use majority sign-up to choose union representation. These companies have found that majority sign-up is a fair and democratic way for workers to make their own decisions and that this process results in less hostility and polarization in the workplace than the current government procedures, with their built-in delays and opportunities for company intimidation and harassment. The change the Employee Free Choice Act makes is to allow workers—not companies—to make the choice of how to form their union.

Does the Employee Free Choice Act take away so-called secret ballot elections?

No. The Employee Free Choice Act simply provides workers another option—majority sign-up. “Elections” may sound like a more democratic approach, but the current NLRB process is nothing like political elections. In NLRB elections as currently conducted, one side has all the power. The company controls the voters’ paychecks and livelihoods and has unlimited access during the workday to propagandize against the union, while restricting pro-union supporters and denying the union any access. Weak remedies encourage companies to intimidate and coerce the voters. The Employee Free Choice Act will restore balance and allow workers a fair and free choice.

Does the Employee Free Choice Act silence employers or require that they remain neutral about the union?

Absolutely not! Companies will still be free to express their opinion about the union.

Will employees be pressured into signing union authorization cards?

No. In fact, academic studies show that workers who organize under majority sign-up feel less pressure from co-workers to support the union than workers who organize under the NLRB election process. They also report far less pressure or coercion from management to oppose the union than workers who go through NLRB elections.

In addition, it is illegal for anyone to coerce employees to sign a union-authorization card, and it will still be illegal under the Employee Free Choice Act.

Isn’t this law really about unions wanting to increase their membership?

This law is about restoring to working people the freedom to improve their lives through collective bargaining. More than half of people who don’t have a union say they would join one tomorrow if given the chance. After all, people who have unions earn 28 percent more than people without unions and are much more likely to have health care and pensions. With a fair and free path to union representation, working people can bargain for better wages, health care and pensions to build a better life for their families. With the economic pressures on working people today, the freedom to join together to bargain for a better life and achieve an economy that works for working people is crucially important.

Who supports the Employee Free Choice Act?

The Employee Free Choice Act has the support  of hundreds of members of Congress of both parties, academics and historians, civil and human rights organizations such as the NAACP and Human Rights Watch, most major faith denominations and 73 percent of the American public. (For a detailed list of supporters, click here.)

Who opposes the Employee Free Choice Act?

Corporate front groups are spending millions to stop the Employee Free Choice Act. CEOs want contracts to protect their salaries and bonuses, but they are fighting hard to stop workers from having the protections of written contracts.They do not want workers to be able to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. The anti-union network includes discredited groups such as the Center for Union Facts, led by lobbyist Richard Berman, who is infamous for fighting against drunk driving laws and consumer and health protections, and the National Right to Work Committee and Foundation, the country’s oldest organization dedicated exclusively to destroying unions.