When workers are allowed to choose a union through a democratic majority verification process (also called “card-check”), they can make their voices heard without having to endure intimidation and harassment from managers during drawn-out National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election procedures. Research shows the majority verification process helps workers and employers improve their relations and work cooperatively toward mutual goals. Here is an example of a majority verification working for workers:

University of Illinois–Chicago Campus Workers Seek Union Through Majority Verification

More than 1,000 teaching and graduate assistants at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) demonstrated their desire to form a union when a clear majority of the workers signed cards stating they want a voice on the job with the Graduate Employees Organization, an AFT affiliate. In 2003, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed a law allowing public employees to form a union once a majority of workers indicates their desire to do so by signing union authorization cards. This filing for recognition is the largest since the law was implemented.

Their effort contrasts starkly with the struggle of graduate employees to form a union at another campus of the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, before the law was passed. Teaching and research assistants there faced harsh opposition to their efforts to form a union: long legal battles and delays while the administration claimed they were not actual workers but students earning financial aid; a “white paper” sent to all students by the administration urging them not to support their union; and direct intimidation and coercion from faculty and department heads. These campus workers were forced to hold a brief strike and a sit-in simply to win their union.

“Gov. Blagojevich’s law supporting majority verification made the University of Illinois–Chicago campaign very different from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign campaign,” says campus worker Kat McLellan, who teaches in the English Department. “Both campaigns demonstrate that people want to form unions and that people will struggle long and hard for the right to form a union. But the UIC campaign shows that legislative support for majority verification makes it easier for people to form the unions they so clearly want to have.”