In today’s edition of Legal Times, acting U.S. Department of Labor solicitor Jonathan L. Snare discusses the Employee Free Choice Act in an article entitled: "To Be or Not to Be Unionized."

Mr. Snare, whose agency is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 that govern internal union elections, reveals that:

At any given time, the department has approximately 35 pending cases that deal with purported union election violations, with a number of those specifically dealing with secret-ballot requirements.

While Mr. Snare's agency does not deal with union representation elections, his experience in investigations of internal union democracy causes him to be concerned that some workers will have no say whatsoever in the decision of whether to be represented or not.

The card-check provision would allow unions to achieve mandatory recognition for a bargaining unit if 50 percent of the workers plus one additional worker sign authorization cards. The other 49 percent of workers would not necessarily be allowed to participate in the decision to form a union, because there would not be a formal election. In fact, because union organizers may select whom they approach to sign cards, those other workers might not even be aware that an organizing campaign is under way.

In contrast to the oft-repeated assertion of EFCA proponents that there was little or no coercion when card-check recognition was required prior to the 1947 amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, Mr. Snare also notes that:

The House report on the 1947 amendments to the NLRA states: “For the last 14 years, as a result of labor laws ill-conceived and disastrously executed, the American workingman has been deprived of his dignity as an individual. He has been cajoled, coerced, intimidated, and on many occasions beaten up. . . . He has been forced to join labor organizations against his will. At other times when he desired to join a particular labor organization he has been prevented from doing so and forced to join another one.” A later conference report similarly noted that a prime purpose of American labor law “is to give employees full freedom to choose or not choose representatives for collective bargaining.”

The entire article is worth reading.