What is majority sign-up, and how does it work?
When a majority of employees votes to form a union by signing authorization cards, and those authorization cards are validated by the federal government, the employer will be legally required to recognize and bargain with the workers’ union.
Majority sign-up is not a new approach. For years, some responsible employers such as Cingular Wireless have taken a position of allowing employees to choose, by majority decision, whether to have a union. Those companies have found that majority sign-up is an effective way to allow workers the freedom to make their own decision—and it results in less hostility and polarization in the workplace than the failed NLRB process. But currently, the choice of whether to allow majority sign-up belongs to the company, not the workers. And most companies reject that method, forcing employees to use the failed election process.
Does the Employee Free Choice Act take away so-called secret ballot elections?
No. If one-third of workers want to have an NLRB election at their workplace, they can still ask the federal government to hold an election. The Employee Free Choice Act simply gives them another option—majority sign-up.
“Elections†may sound like the most democratic approach, but the NLRB process is nothing like democratic elections in our society—presidential elections, for example—because one side has all the power. The employer controls the voters’ paychecks and livelihood, has unlimited access to speak against the union in the workplace while restricting pro-union speech and has the freedom to intimidate and coerce the voters.
