One of the big obstacles in advancing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is that most people don't have any idea how union drives actually work and, as such, don't understand the relevance of the pro-worker reforms included in the bill.  If you're among those who've been confused about this debate, we urge you to read T.A. Frank's latest piece in The Washington Monthly.  Get beyond the flippant headline and you'll find a great case study in how federal labor law favors employers at the expense of those fighting for better wages and working conditions.

In the article, Frank highlights one crucial (but overlooked) dimension of the bill: while the public debate has largely centered around the issue of union elections, the EFCA would also beef up the penalties against employers who violate National Labor Relations Board guidelines.  Currently, those penalties are negligible, allowing front offices to impede union drives with impunity:

What most undermines the secret-ballot process is that employers can violate the law in numerous ways without consequences. Under EFCA, however, every illegal action has the potential to be costly, so firings, spying, threats, or other forms of intimidation would be less likely.

Frank also points out that the duration of the NLRB election process is excessive and one alternative remedy would be to speed it up:

Also, there is an alternative way to preserve the secret ballot while guarding against company malfeasance: expedited elections. Under current law, months can go by between when NLRB announces the results of a card check vote and when a secret-ballot election is held. If, however, this campaign window were reduced to just a few days, employers would have less opportunity to intimidate union supporters into changing their minds. Workers I spoke to in Lancaster seemed content with this alternative. And some savvy people in the labor movement I spoke to feel the same way—provided that employers either refrain from captive-audience campaigning or else grant union members equal access to the workplace during a campaign.

Meanwhile, over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum takes issue with Frank's suggestion that card check "may be the least important of the card check legislation," but agrees that "aggressive enforcement of existing law, all by itself, would go a long way toward improving the lot of labor in America."