When workers want to improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions, they often decide to engage in the process of forming a union in their workplace. They do so out of a belief that workers and employers ought to share power and the decision-making when it comes to these basic issues.

The process by which workers decide to join a union appears to be quite simple. In practice, however, the process is fundamentally flawed and in need of reform.

In theory, workers decide whether or not to form a union through a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency.

In reality, in the weeks leading up to this election, workers face a variety of forms of employer coercion and intimidation that we would never tolerate in our democratic process. Even when workers vote to form a union (as they did almost four years ago at Walker Methodist Health Care they face the prospect that their employer might refuse to negotiate a contract. For more on what workers face, read here.

Now, there is a chance to change this. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would ensure that when a majority of employees in a workplace decide to form a union, they could do so without facing coercion or intimidation. Workers who support forming a union would simply sign a card indicating their interest. When a majority of cards get signed, the employer would be required to begin negotiating with workers.

Most major religious traditions support the right of workers to come together, to form unions, and to bargain collectively with their employers. In a situation where the system for making this possible is broken, the religious community is called to speak out, so that workers have the chance to form unions that will lift them out of poverty and ensure a quality of life that sustains workers and their families.

The Employee Free Choice Act has already been passed by a committee of the US House of Representatives. Further action from the US House as well as the United States Senate, is required to make this bill the law of the land.

Call your Representative in the US House and Senators Coleman and Klobuchar. Urge them to support the Employee Free Choice Act!

Click here to learn more about how to contact members of congress.