By Doug Miller

Legislation in Congress that would make it easier for workers to form unions is doomed because the Obama administration , with so many other hard contentious issues on its agenda, won’t risk political capital in its defense, according to some experts on trade unionism.

“My understanding is that it’s pretty much dead in the water,” said Robert Grossman, a Marist College professor of business management, who has tracked the legislation closely. His bleak assessment of the prospects for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) currently bottled up in the House Committee on Education and Labor was supported by Cletus E. Daniel, a professor of labor history at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “I don’t think it (EFCA) will succeed,” Daniel stated bluntly – at least not without sincere presidential support. As it is, he added, the bill isn’t even close to the top of President Obama’s agenda.

Rachel Racusen, a spokesperson for the Committee, disagreed, claiming “Right now, we have the votes to pass it. It certainly remains a priority,” she added, citing a recent Hart Research poll that found 73 percent of Americans supported the bill after hearing about its provisions.

The bill, introduced earlier this year by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), gives workers who are considering collective bargaining a choice about how to do it. They could form a legitimate union using either a majority sign-up process or a National Labor Relations Board election process. Both processes exist under current law, but employers now have the power to reject the sign-up approach and force a secret-ballot election, unfairly tilting the balance of power toward them.

In remarks accompanying introduction of the bill, Miller said “the process itself stacks the deck against union supporters. The employer has all the power; they control the information workers can receive, can force workers to attend anti-union meetings during work hours, can force workers to meet with supervisors who deliver anti-union messages, and can even imply that the business will close if the union wins.”

“The key,” says Grossman, “is that they (unions) can’t compete; the employer has a captive audience.” Coercion and pressure on workers are reduced by using the majority sign-up process.

The bill also takes steps to ensure that an initial union contract is put in place within a stated time frame. Currently employers are under no obligation to reach an agreement with a fledgling union; in fact, one study found that 34 percent of new unions don’t reach agreement with employers for up to two or three years after a victorious election. The proposed law would also streng then penalties against employers who retaliate against workers trying to organize or negotiate a first contract.

“The argument employers make is that you’re denying people an election,” according to Grossman, who also agreed that the bill in fact does not deny the freedom to hold an election; it simply transfers the power to decide whether an election occurs from employers to employees.

Businesses have launched a heavily financed lobbying campaign against the EFCA. Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute – which despite its name is a pro-business organization – was cited by the New York Times earlier this year as saying the issue “has really become very high on the radar screen. Businesses are ready to riot in the street about it.” He called the measure “the most radical rewrite of labor legislation since the 1930s; it is a political nightmare and a public policy disaster.”

But Cornell’s Daniel said the business lobby’s campaign underscores the diminished protections workers have in an era when “employers are so bold in punishing activism. Employers have almost unlimited power in the United States,” he added, which makes it hard for workers to do anything but back down and take the job at any cost – especially in an economy wracked by unemployment. He concluded that the unwillingness of the Obama administration to throw its weight behind the issue means the bill is in all practicality doomed to failure. “It’s simple political calculus,” the labor historian said. “When it comes to putting real political capital on the line, the president is unwilling to take the political risk.” Publicly, he added, unions won’t criticize the president, but privately they don’t expect much from him in terms of support for the bill.

Doug Miller is a writer living in Westchester County, New York.