What is the Employee Free Choice Act?

The Employee Free Choice Act is a bill proposed by Congress that would enable employees of corporations to form unions without being penalized by their employers. The bill is quite controversial, and depending on whom you ask, it’s either great news for the economy or a disaster in the making.

Breaking Down What the Bill Means

In the past, federal laws have mostly discouraged employees from forming unions, and union memberships have decreased from around one-third of all employees in the country to just about 8 percent, despite more than half of all U.S. workers reporting that they would join a union if they could. Supporters of the bill claim that unions help the economy by putting a check on top-level corporate executive greed, while opponents of union labor say that workers’ unions slow down the economy by artificially inflating wages and discouraging investment.

Although it hasn’t been illegal to form a union, companies have been allowed to ban their employees from discussing unionization during working hours unless they’re off the clock and away from the place of business. The bill officially prohibits businesses from barring their employees from discussing unionization, so joining a union would be a lot easier for workers in any industry.

The controversy of the law is centered around the secret ballot vote that union workers are currently required to make even if they designate their unions to represent them to their employers. Supporters of the bill say that the ballot isn’t really secret because employers have effective ways of finding out which way a worker is going to vote before an election, and it’s considered unfair that companies can force their employees to cast a vote when a majority of them have designated a union representative.

How Union Workers Will Be Affected

The debate between supporters and opponents of the bill is somewhat technical, and it can be tricky to identify exactly how union workers will be affected in the future. Under current laws, even if all the employees of a company say that they want to be represented by a union in an election, the company can simply ignore their preference and make them vote for themselves, using certain methods to discover how the employees will cast their ballots. Opponents of the bill say that the employees’ opinions will be less protected without secret ballots because everyone will have unlimited access to the votes they cast, but union advocates heatedly contest this point.

Lawmakers opposed to the bill have expressed disbelief at its proposal, pointing out the contradiction in calling the removal of a secret ballot the Employee Free Choice Act, but supporters of the law insist that it makes workers freer to form, join and promote union organizations. It was proposed by the 110th Congress in 2009, and since then, it has been debated by two congressional sessions. Support for the bill is divided along party lines, with Democrats voting in favor of the law and Republicans voting against it.

Whether or not unions negatively impact the economy, it’s hard to argue that laws restricting unionization are less obtrusive than the unions themselves, and arguments for or against organized labor are essentially divided along party lines. If you’re a union worker who wants to be represented by your organization, you may want to learn more about the Employee Free Choice Act.

Related Resource: What Does a Labor Relations Manager Do?